I own nothing of BBC's Sherlock.
General, character study. Mentions of flashbacks and spoilers for BBC Sherlock's Baskerville. Slight change to the Baskerville plot, where John's flashbacks in the lab had a little more effect on him, not much more though...actually I don't think there is much change...
Warning: Rambling ahead, read at risk of death via boredom.
At first glance John and Sherlock were complete opposites in everything.
John was comely handsome, with comfortable plains and a gentle demeanour whereas Sherlock was angular, striking with discordant features that meshed handsomely and an abrasive rude personality.
John was short with neatly cropped blond hair, healthily tanned, straight posture and without fail wearing a soft jumper, normally knitted. Sherlock was tall with windswept dark hair just past his chin in places, pale, all flowing lines jerking against one another and always wearing a tailored suit with a long black coat reminiscent of a trench coat.
You would first describe them as the heart and the brain, John the heart and Sherlock the brain. Sherlock was someone you went to when you wanted to know who killed your husband John was the one you went to for condolences and warming cups of tea to soothe the fresh hurts caused by Sherlock's acidic tongue. John the doctor, healing and Sherlock the man chasing criminals.
John was excellent at human interaction almost empathic, someone you always wanted round in the background for his calming presence alone. Sherlock was analytical, machine like at times, statistics flying off his tongue as deductions; he was someone you wanted around when you wanted answers but not normally at any other time.
John was military neatness, his room clean and sparse, the furniture arranged in precise and above all convenient places. Orderly. Sherlock's room (and the main room and the kitchen and the...you get the picture) was chaotic filled with bits and pieces like a human skull, scraps of receipts, decomposing sandwiches, stolen police badges etc. Hazardous.
But the opposites only lasted if you didn't know them personally.
If you knew them you knew there were opposites but there were also similarities and times when they weren't quite opposite but also weren't the same.
It was at the Baskerville case that Gregory Lestrade saw what nearly everyone missed but that only confirmed his previous thoughts.
He knew that some days (very rarely) John was worse to be round than Sherlock. That on a bad day Sherlock would be the pillar of calm understated strength. John wasn't nasty on those days (even if he was quicker to snap than usual and his normally gentle quips had a bite to them) but his empathic nature attuned to other people on most days almost projected John's misery and people in John's presence felt down.
Those days occurred when John's patients didn't make it or if he was remembering something particularly painful or gruesome from his past. Sometimes those days occurred because John's shoulder was acting up and therefore his psychosomatic leg pain.
But on those days Sherlock made tea (as disgusting and over brewed as it was) and played John's favourite tunes on his violin and on those days the milk was always stocked and unspoilt.
Then there were the days when Sherlock was...off. There were days when the craving for a fix was overwhelming him, the need for a high swamping and clouding his brain, days he could sometimes quell if he used several nicotine patches. On those days John gave Sherlock puzzles, he hid the cigarettes and made Sherlock look for them, he changed the password on his laptop, sometimes he discretely rang up Mycroft for any particularly complex cases and John had a very secret stash of (very) very old cold cases that he would give Sherlock. When Sherlock was absorbed in the task John had set John would very quietly dispose of the nicotine patches, cigarettes and other questionable substances.
People assumed John was just a tag along for the great detective, an ego boaster. They were utterly and completely wrong. John may not have had the brilliant ever processing brain Sherlock did but he was sharp, good at reading people and a dam good doctor. There had been more than a few times in a particularly hard case that a simple summary from John or a single sentence cleared the muddle for Sherlock and he would go haring off knowing the culprit. John noticed the simple but essential things, sometimes the very things Sherlock missed.
And John made sure Sherlock ate, sometimes he could even trick him into eating (Sherlock would always realise but normally when it was too late).
And Sherlock always conferred with John if something medical came up, bowing to John's more advanced knowledge at that particular avenue.
There was one trait that they both shared. Both were rather stoic. You would expect John to be an open book, expressions playing across his face but the majority of the time Sherlock was more easily read by facial expression. Both were a little like icebergs, only a small percentage of their true emotions were ever visible.
But they always, always, knew what the other meant, they didn't always hear what the other said only responding to what the other meant.
Both were stubborn mule headed idiots at times too.
And while John's moral compass was better than Sherlock's it was still skewed. John was a soldier, a doctor first and then a soldier but before he was a doctor he was a friend. John would giggle inappropriately at crime scenes just like Sherlock and both occasionally made statements of a macabre humour not suitable for a crime scene.
If Sherlock's statements got a pause (and maybe a few glowers) Sherlock would always check with John.
- "Not good?"
"Bit not good, yeah."-
They did argue at times, they had spats but the arguments were quickly fixed. And if apologies were needed Sherlock would buy dinner and actually eat for once.
At the Baskerville case Lestrade had seen firsthand John and Sherlock at odds.
Apparently Sherlock had drugged John with the hallucinogenic created (well attempted to, the drug wasn't in the sugar Sherlock had given John but the intent was the same). It hadn't reacted well with John's military past.
It had taken several shots of whiskey before colour returned to John's face and several more before he stopped shaking. Sherlock looked wretched, it had taken him ages to get John to recognise him in the daze the drugs induced and he had dragged John back to their rooms.
John hadn't spoken to Sherlock until the next morning.
It had always amazed Lestrade how very forgiving John could be but he thought that maybe this time he understood why John forgave this particular wrong so swiftly. Sherlock Holmes, self proclaimed Sociopath had had a guilty look in his eyes. Sherlock hadn't completely thought about the consequences for his actions, John staring at him unrecognisably, looking like Sherlock was a threat had slammed home. Probably at the same time as the right hook.
Just like the forgiveness went unvoiced Gregory didn't mention the fact that John carried that he wasn't sure was entirely legal. Or that he was an excellent marksman with a military history. Greg hadn't realised quite how good a marksman John was until John used Henry's gun to shoot the Hound at Baskerville. John had used a gun he had never held before and while under absolute terror had aimed true, hands impossibly stead.
It was this, all the unvoiced things, all the unspoken words, conversations, entire novels that passed between Sherlock and John that made Greg understand. It would take him a book to convey what Sherlock and John could with one look.
John would forgive Sherlock his flaws because Sherlock would forgive his own. And despite the fact that Sherlock had so many more flaws it didn't really matter. Because John was calm, accepting and he loved Sherlock just as Sherlock loved him.
And strangely he thought he understood. Understood that their unique bond transcended romance, that they loved each other but weren't in love with each other, their love was utterly platonic, they knew all the bad, all the good about one another yet they surprised each other still and it was this that kept their friendship fresh despite John knowing instinctively to hand out a pen without being asked and Sherlock knew when he had to make tea for once. Despite the mundane routine that they did have to acquiesce to, the little surprises of each other's characters kept their friendship ever changing evolving.
The mundane things, like John picking up Sherlock's laundry as well as his own and Sherlock remembering to actually buy the milk although these easy things came with the ease of knowing someone, knowing their flaws and strengths was just as ordinary as anyone else's relationship, siblings, friends, lovers etc, was normal (despite the heads in the fridge). But the little surprises, John laughing where Sherlock expected him to frown, Sherlock making tea when John expected him to spout forth abrasively all made their dynamic more while making it their dynamic.
They didn't sink into boring neutrality; they were utterly their own people while revolving around each other. He couldn't quite say if it was John who was the sun or Sherlock but it didn't matter, it was inconsequential, they revolved around each other, were each other's worlds, while having their own gravity, their own unique land.
John wasn't less himself around Sherlock and Sherlock wasn't less Sherlock around John. Around Sherlock John became the brightest the best of John and around John Sherlock became the brightest the best of Sherlock.
The earth orbits the sun but is an important entity by itself despite being caught in the gravitational pull.
It wasn't that they were any less when not together; it was more that they were greater when together. And he admitted with a wry grin, yes that didn't make complete sense but then neither did Sherlock or John.
They were best friends, perhaps it was that simple.