Day 3 - Love and Sherlock Holmes
Forever is an awfully long time, but I wouldn't mind spending it by your side.
"He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer- excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained observer to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his." -Arthur Conan Doyle
Love. The fly in the ointment. The crack in the lens. Emotions so contrary to anything that made Sherlock Holmes the best detective in the world. In any world.
Love was the very opposite of the cold hard logic he held so dear. In all honesty, if he could have cut those emotions out of himself, he would have. But as much as he tried, he'd never completely rid himself of his humanity.
Love what what drove him down this path in the first place.
One could even say that Sherlock Holmes loved so fiercely it encompassed his entire being. Love came so easy to him, in it's many forms and in the strangest of places. Loving the game. Loving the chase. Loving being himself. Love was actually very simple.
Expressing it, however, was another story. Especially towards other people.
Sherlock never had friends before John came along. He'd never expected to be a best friend either, he knew himself. No one in their right mind would be a companion to someone as cold and unpredictable and obnoxious and rude as he was. He broke up relationships. He openly pointed out things that people wanted to keep quiet. He was loud and flamboyant one moment and then disappearing out the door the next. He saw too much and tried too hard to impress people in his own way. But he learned in childhood that society didn't accept people who were different.
No one said Doctor John Hamish Watson was in his right mind. He was as man who went to war. A soldier and a doctor. A killer and a healer. He both balanced Sherlock out and willingly lost himself to the adventure. Between them there was mutual understanding. Mutual love. Neither Sherlock nor John would have said in so many words. It took until Mary's influence for either of them to express it openly.
Love came in many forms, but the way Sherlock had least expected to feel it was romantically. Whether he hadn't thought himself capable, didn't want to, or willed it away for work, it was impossible to pin down. He dismissed romantic love as frivolous and unnecessary, because it was. It would slow him down. So he abstained, cut it out because he had no need for it. Besides, it wasn't like he could be a good boyfriend or lover. He wasn't built for it. At least that's what he had thought.
Natalia Alianovna Romanova was no ordinary lover, nor an ordinary woman. She provided balance and intrigue and understanding. This had captured his attention and reeled him in. They made each other human, putting away difficult pasts and leaving room for a future. She saw him in ways others didn't. She saw the passion and love underneath the rest of him. One kiss on the beach and he found himself falling into an unexpected experience.
But when love was both logical and illogical, he decided he could accept it. It wouldn't interfere with work that didn't exist in this Convergence world. And even back home...for Natasha he thought he'd be able to balance it.
This place also had provided an unique opportunity to reconcile with his brother. The world had changed them both, for the better. And ever so slowly, they had begun to learn how to express brotherly compassion and love. Forgiving old scores and resentments. Moving forward as a family. Falling absolutely in love with Mycroft's unexpected daughter.
Mycroft Holmes was horrid at expressing love too. They hadn't ever been very good at it, and that caused a rift that constantly needed healing. A world of trials and twists seemed a good a place as any to fix it. Sherlock didn't regret that. He longed for it. He needed people to love and be loved by.
Sherlock Holmes loved, perhaps too much. From the woman who counted to his trusted housekeeper to his best friend's wife, he was filled with it to the point of bubbling over. To the point of doing anything for them.
Anyone who said differently…well they were just unobservant and ordinary.