Authors Note: Well, despite all the changes in my life (new house, new city, new everything!) I am finally back! So my sweeties, shall we continue? I do plan to update this with faaaaar more regularity now that I've got some of that to spare.
John was not nervous.
Definitely not.
Nervous was the kind of thing a seventeen year old girl might be on her way to prom or a first date.
John was doing neither of those things. He was an adult male perfectly capable of attending a live musical event without having a private mental fucking breakdown beforehand.
End of story.
If he had happened to tear his closet apart in the meantime, that was simply an unhappy coincidence.
"I should just call the whole thing off," he mumbled darkly to himself before throwing yet another- how many did he truly own?- beige jumper off to the side. He knew what the crowd would be like once he got to the concert hall. Young, in touch with current trends, wearing half a shirt or a skirt that looked like the curtains in his Nan's house. They would not see the practicality of a loose fitted jumper and worn in jeans.
John was too old for this and clearly in over his head. Thinking of heads made him wonder whether the lobotomy was still an option.
"Wear the striped one."
"Did you know they've discovered being born two years earlier doesn't actually mean you know everything?," John snipped, tilting his head to look at Harry leaning against the door frame as she shrugged in response.
"Just fits you nice, makes you look a bit less like a senior citizen. Try not to be so uptight about this okay? It's not as if anyone's expecting you to be there."
"Yes, I'm aware, don't you have anything better to do?"
"Better than watching you go mad? Not bloody likely," she offered with a grin.
That was the problem entirely. No one would notice him and John was simply being ridiculous. That thought did not stop him from pulling on the hem of his striped shirt for twenty more minutes.
"You know he's going to be there, don't you?"
"Of course."
"Of course?"
"So far, so obvious."
"Oh, come now, I thought he was… intriguing."
"You always do, until you figure out what they like as you so elegantly put it. Then you are forced to face the facts. It is a harsh world we live in, best to just grin and bear it. "
She has the worst sort of laugh. More of a cackle, really.
"Sweetheart, if I didn't give them a fighting chance I'd be as bored as you are."
"Yes, thank you ever so much for your overwhelming sympathy."
"Well, you know what those boys over at the label do. Try to stick some sorry sap with you and pat themselves on the back because they tried really really hard, it just didn't work out. Predictable, even by us normal peoples' standards."
"That doesn't make it any less hateful."
"I thought that the great Sherlock Holmes didn't care who his opening act was, or even if he had one."
"He doesn't. That doesn't mean he wishes to be saddled with any talentless hack off the street."
"My, aren't we touchy today darling."
"Mrs. Hudson took my skull again."
"Ah, well that explains it, doesn't it? Now, be a good boy and pass me that lipstick there."
"Blood red again?"
"Of course."
"Right, he's intriguing, how could I possibly forget."
"So far, so obvious."
Her cat like smile was just as unnerving as her laugh
John was ancient. Prehistoric. Really, truly, incredibly, unbelievably old. He wouldn't have stood out anymore if he'd come limping into the smokey club hobbled over a cane. Judging by the withering looks he was getting from the teenagers (the teenagers, when had he started thinking like that?), they probably believed he'd simply elected to leave his walker at home for the night.
Thirty one years old and John was growing concerned for the state of his pension. That felt like a good enough excuse if anyone asked what had driven him to drink.
The small bar wasn't much better but most people were more interested in pushing their way to the front of the stage than they were in getting pissed at that moment. John decided to take what small blessings he could and ordered a scotch. He pointedly ignored the look the bartender gave when his order wasn't for some neon fruit flavoured concoction.
"I'm going to assume you don't go out in disguise very often then," a grey haired man leaning against the bar asked and John tried to crush the wave of panic washing over him.
Looking the man over, John was reasonably sure he'd never met him before. How it was that this stranger seemed to fit in better was a question he wasn't sure he wanted the answer to.
"Not enough interest to justify a larger budget in the costume department," John snipped back with a shrug, causing the other man to give a gruff laugh.
"Suppose that's true, ain't it? Not everyone puts on a production, suppose he just does it for the hell of it," the man mused to himself, chuckling down at a mostly empty pint.
"I'm sorry, whose this?," John asked, losing track of what was one of his more sober bar side talks.
"Sherlock of course," was the friendly reply, if not a little exasperated but John still narrowed his eyes. It was one thing for a random member of the crowd to recognize him, it was quite another for the same member to know about the surprise appearance coming up.
"Greg Lestrade, manager," the man, Greg, said once he apparently realized that John's suspicious look was the only answer he could expect.
"Did my sister tell you I was coming?"
The man laughed kindly again before saying, "No, one of the first things you learn from being around Sherlock is that he knows a hell of a lot more about everything than he has any right to. Bastard's got no sense of privacy."
"Right," so Sherlock Holmes knew he was going to be there, that John was debating whether a career boost was worth months of exposure to the most talked about man in music. Great.
"Don't let me stop you though, he's not really as bad as the papers make him seem," Lestrade hastily added.
John gave him a sceptical look.
"Right, suppose they might be right about him occasionally. I do think Sherlock is a good man though, if he stopped with all the bloody bullshit antics he might even be a great one. People just don't get him right away, and then they stop trying to figure it out you know?"
It was a sentiment John could relate to. He'd long ago reached the point where people simply didn't care about what he'd had to say about anything that wasn't 'Indecent'. They didn't want to find out who John Watson was as a person, just as the guy who wrote their favourite song that one time.
"Just enjoy the show alright," the other man said with a shrug and a pat on John's shoulder as he made to leave.
John gave a tiny nod but was quickly swallowed up by the growing crowd.
It was pandemonium.
John tried to remember whether this was how all concerts were or if it was specifically related to a room containing Irene Adler.
If that was the case, he had to admit it was justified.
It was impossible to look anywhere else the seconds the lights in the house had dropped to show a supremely unfair backlit hourglass silhouette. She was captivating, intriguing and the dictionary definition of seduction. The woman had a few thousand people eating out of the palm of her hand and they all knew it. Each song came with a pounding bass beat and a smooth voice that seemed to slip lyrics into your ear like silk.
Poor boy, never stood a chance did you?
No I don't care what they say, oh what they say
How bout we run away
Run away
Run away
Together, forever, maybe just tonight
Poor boy Imma make you feel alright
Every single female, along with a good part of the male population, was screeching the words back while jumping and clapping to the beat with each instruction that they were given by the songstress. John couldn't help but relax with a smile as the crowd jostled past him from where he stood near the back. It had always felt right being where ever music was appreciated and these people, no matter their age, did seem to be enjoying the bubbley pop being performed.
Then, at the end of her new energetic single, Irene urged the crowd for one more thunderous round of clapping which seemed to set off a huge cloud of smoke. This sent the room into full screams of excitement that John found hard to believe. He watched as an entire room full of people became unable to control themselves as the smoke (theater trick, John knew) began to clear to reveal a stage empty of all but plain black painted instruments which were very different from the candy coloured ones of before.
A flash of brilliant white light flooded the building, blinding the frantic audience for a moment when a single bass beat of the drums was heard followed by the wail of a guitar.
It was pandemonium before. John came to the conclusion that there was not a word fit to describe the crowd when Sherlock Holmes stepped out of the shadows dressed in tight black trousers and an equally tight deep purple button up. The flashes of camera phone intensified as the bass guitar picked up the beat while Sherlock himself practically sauntered up to the microphone.
The rest of the night was a blur for John.
He'd found himself thrust into the crowd amongst the mad rush to get as close to the stage as physically possible. John had to admit he'd spent far too long being in awe of the man whose raspy deep voice filled the room with words which the fans sang along with so loudly John thought he could feel it in his spine, each line in the verse getting progressively louder until Sherlock himself was screaming them/
This isn't murder
It's assisted suicide
It's an 'I told you so'
From all the times
When I didn't think I'd make
I was right the whole time
And the look in your eyes
Has felt like goodbye for so long
Im not even sure if this is really home
Or if I've just always been on my own
John marvelled at the anger that came from who he'd expected to be such a composed person, at the raw emotion clear on the parts of that sweat drenched face that weren't obscured by unruly black curls with every toss of the head to the beat. The crowd seemed to feel along with Sherlock, a few girls were even crying while simultaneously reaching out their hands to try and grab something of this celebrity. John would have questioned the sanity in that normally but nothing about Sherlock Holmes performing felt normal, simply otherworldly.
The singer had many songs which felt like anthems to the younger generation present, perfect poetic slaps in the face to the powers that were slower songs as well, performed by just Sherlock and a piano the stage crew wheeled out. These were no less painful as the singer seemed to crumple around the instrument with each vehement word whispered into the attached microphone.
I just wanted to make it quiet enough
That I couldn't hear you leaving
No I don't think it matters so much
If I'm having some trouble breathing
And if I ever did
Well then I don't anymore
Because you went and left me
With that empty door
And nothing else
And that can't be how love felt
So what if I've got my vices
They haven't let me down yet
When the lights came down for the final call, the crowd was a mob and John felt a certainty he hadn't in a long time.
It could very well be the worst decision he ever made but John Watson knew he couldn't walk away from the spectacle he'd just witnessed. Sherlock Holmes was something else and John needed to know what that was exactly.
Authors Note: I would absolutely love to know what you think!
