A/N Holy hell. Did I just post every day for a whole week? This is momentous, guys.
Thanks to johnsarmylady, total-animal-lover, Motaku1235, and Orchfan
Disclaimer I don't own Sherlock or any associated characters, events, etc.
LXII. Magic
Sherlock knows that many people see his abilities as inhuman, but he doesn't understand how they could ever be considered such. They're the most absolutely scientific, fundamental functions that a mind is given, and just the fact that his is more advanced than others' doesn't make it magical. They still gawk, though, disbelieving that any regular person could be capable of such a thing.
And perhaps one couldn't, because Sherlock isn't normal, he knows that he's not normal. Nonetheless, he can't help but stand by the belief that his own capabilities are utterly unimpressive, even mundane next to the power of someone like John Watson.
Because John, unlike Sherlock, does know how to work magic. Sherlock's positive of this. There's nothing else, is there, that could do such things to his heart, accelerate it every time the blonde doctor approaches, twist and contort it into a million shapes with every word out of his mouth, every flicker of his expression? In Sherlock's mind, John is surely a magician, to be able to play the chords of the detective's mind and body so effortlessly, spin him to his will, steal the air from his lungs and replace it with clouds of fairy dust, pale, glittering gold mist that tickles and stabs and massages all at once, to the point where he can't imagine anything more perfect or more torturous.
And Sherlock's stupid, and he knows he's stupid, to ever let it so much as cross his mind that the things John does to him are in the least bit supernatural, and perhaps it's fear that propels him to imagine such a thing in the first place—fear, because he can't control these foreign things, which he's beginning to recognize have a name, a substance—emotions, that's what they are, and they terrify him like nothing else.
John's the one who brought them out in the first place, brought them out of their hiding, of their dank caves and their musty nooks, even if he has no idea, himself. Meaning that John is also the conductor of it all—he can make those emotions move, make them swerve and ripple effortlessly. He has power, such boundless power, and he has no idea of it.
Sherlock never dares to tell him the truth, knowing how ridiculous such a thing would sound, but he still holds it in his mind, burning day and night and all the little moments in between. John Watson holds his heart, and he lives in constant dread of the inevitable day that he'll drop and break it.