InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Exit stage left."

Sherlock Holmes (reasonbackward) wrote in colligo_threads,
@ 2010-09-07 00:57:00

Entry tags:

!@event, !closed, john watson, sherlock holmes

WHO: genderswapped!Sherlock Holmes & John Watson
WHAT: Anatomy just doesn't change in the blink of an eye.
WHERE: Sherlock & John's apartment
WHEN: Just past the witching hour, September 7th
RATING: PG
STATUS: In Progress

It was an interesting development, just as he had told John, and as Sherlock stood in the kitchen, brewing tea and turning his eyes over the markedly different bone structure in his hands and arms, he couldn't help but smile at the baffling puzzle that laid before him. One did not just alter genders in the blink of an eye. The procedure to do so was expensive, time consuming, and hell on both the body and the mind, and yet, here he was as true as the day was long fully female in every capacity (he'd checked). Some people would panic, dissolve into frantic confusion over a situation that made no logical sense, but Sherlock merely saw it as a challenge, something to break up the monotony that had settled over him and give him the ability to deny Moriarty the pleasure of him admitting defeat in the face of such tedium.

"John!" Sherlock called, well assured that his minute was more than up only thinking after the fact that his voice would give away the game long before he'd intended: different shape, different vocal chords, different voice. But no matter. John was likely to dismiss the oddity in pitch as being the product of his sleep addled mind. Or perhaps assume that his flatmate had brought home a mysterious woman in the middle of the night to keep him company. No. No, John was more likely to guess the true reason before leaping to the last.

Pouring two cups of tea, Sherlock turned, a ghost of a smile on his features as he waited for John to emerge from his bedroom and take in the puzzle before him. His reaction would be priceless.

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reasonbackward
2010-09-07 09:11 pm UTC (link)

As clueless as Sherlock could be most of the time when it came to other peoples' emotional reactions, John suddenly going cold on him was something that even he had come to recognize as a sign that he had said or done something wrong. "John?" He questioned, new feminine voice sounding a little less controlled than his own normally did. "What did I do?"

Waking him had only irritated him. Practically flashing him had only prompted frustrated annoyance. Staring down at the tea on the floor, Sherlock frowned and grabbed a dish towel off of the counter to bend down and mop it up. It was only a little spilled drink. He could only hope that John had more sense than to get upset over that.

But it was cleaned up all the same, and as Sherlock stood back up, tipping his eyes towards his friend, he waited in hopes that he had corrected whatever he'd done wrong as this wasn't like the last time John had gotten so upset with him merely because of his own mistaken expectations. There was nothing he could pinpoint here that would make it not his fault.

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hisbestman
2010-09-07 09:31 pm UTC (link)

He stopped and turned to face his flatmate. That he even had to ask...he shook his head. He watched Sherlock clean up the tea and sighed. "It wasn't the tea, Sherlock," he said. "I rather hope you would know me better than to think I would be upset over tea, of all things."

He was quiet for a moment. "Honestly, Sherlock," he said, forcing himself to remain calm and not just throttle the man, "if you can't sort it out yourself, then there really isn't any point." And he didn't mean that in the way women often did, when they expected men to read their minds. The fact was, if Sherlock couldn't see the problem with what he had said, if what had happened had so little impact, then telling him wouldn't fix anything.

"I'm going to bed," he said firmly. "I hope you enjoy your puzzle."

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reasonbackward
2010-09-07 10:14 pm UTC (link)

Sherlock frowned, ready to protest again, insist that John wasn't going to bed until he explained what the issue was and why he was upset with him. But Sherlock bit his tongue, staring after his friend for a moment before slumping back down in the chair that he'd vacated only moments before, confusion creasing his features as he propped his head up on his elbows with a sigh.

This...

This was why he didn't do friends.

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hisbestman
2010-09-07 10:18 pm UTC (link)

John closed the door to his room behind him, and slumped against it, closing his eyes and counting to ten. Some part of him expected better of Sherlock, expected him to realise these things. But he wasn't being fair, he supposed. Expecting Sherlock to consider people's feelings or realise why those words hurt to hear...it was like expecting him to buy the milk or remember the Prime Minister.

And he had made tea without prompting. That was something, he supposed.

After a few minutes, he walked back out and put a hand on Sherlock's shoulder, hesitantly. "Just..." he stopped. "Just think about what you're saying next time. Please."

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reasonbackward
2010-09-07 10:26 pm UTC (link)

Sherlock hadn't expected John to come back out of his room. His head had been bowed when he'd heard the door open, eyes directed downwards until he'd felt John's hand on his shoulder. Turning his gaze towards the other man, Sherlock's expression flickered into something resembling honest confusion. Think about what he's saying? He always thought about it. Often he didn't remember stray statements that tripped off his tongue after his reasoning was concluded, but he always thought about what he was saying.

Was that really what had made John so upset? Really?

"I'm sure a just for fun collection holds as much merit as my ideas, John," Sherlock said, carefully forming the words to try and soothe the upset he'd seemingly caused. "I do appreciate your input."

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hisbestman
2010-09-07 10:35 pm UTC (link)

"You think..." John stared at Sherlock for a long moment, then laughed. "When have I ever cared if you think my input has any value, Sherlock? Or if you think I'm an idiot? I'm fairly certain the answer is never. I'm hardly upset over you disagreeing with me. Christ! You don't even have a clue what you said, do you! It didn't even register in that massive brain of yours." He was honestly baffled. "For a genius, you are a complete and utter idiot sometimes."

He sighed and busied himself with cleaning up the cups of tea, more to give himself something to do than anything. "Would you like to know what you said, Sherlock?" he asked. "Would you like to know what it was that bothered me?"

He took a deep breath. "You said, and this is a direct quote," he made sure to enunciate each word to be sure Sherlock didn't miss anything, "then again, people do get so sentimental over their pets." And if Sherlock didn't get it now, he'd honestly have to beat the man to death with his shoe.

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reasonbackward
2010-09-07 10:50 pm UTC (link)

"Well, they..." Sherlock snapped his mouth closed before he could say 'do', the words echoing in his head, and he finally realized why John had had such a violent reaction. "Oh." Well that was... Sherlock wasn't even sure what that was. He'd been working so hard to convince himself that he was nothing like Moriarty, and yet, those words had tripped so easily off of his tongue that he hadn't even realize he'd said it or that it would even matter. But it did, a lot more than even John probably realized.

"I'm not like him."

He felt like it was necessary to say, to reassure himself more than John at this point.

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hisbestman
2010-09-07 11:11 pm UTC (link)

"Of course you aren't." There was absolutely no hesitation, no doubt in John's voice. The very idea that Sherlock was at all like Moriarty was ridiculous. It was laughable at best. He'd only known Sherlock for a handful of months, but he knew he was completely different from Moriarty. Moriarty would never have risked himself for John's sake, would never have cared if he lived or died.

"And that's why it upset me," he said. "You aren't him. You aren't at all like him. When you say things like that...it's hard." He gave Sherlock a small smile. "I guess I'm not really dealing with...what happened...as well as I might like." He said it as if it were some fault of his, as if it were weakness not to cope with being kidnapped and strapped into explosives and used as a chess piece in an epic battle of wits between his best (only) friend and a psychopath, then to wind up in another world with said best friend and psychopath and shot in said battle of wits.

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reasonbackward
2010-09-08 12:55 am UTC (link)

Sherlock mirrored John's smile as he reached out, poking his friend's side as it was only when he was sitting down and John standing next to him that Sherlock even glimpsed at anything below John's shoulders. "You did almost die, John. Twice," Sherlock said, lifting an eyebrow at his friend. "I think that there is more than enough there to warrant you having difficulty dealing with it." After all, Sherlock was having a hard time dealing with it himself.

"You should know me better than to think that I would say anything like that on purpose," Sherlock said after a moment. "I would hope."

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hisbestman
2010-09-08 06:34 am UTC (link)

John swatted at Sherlock's hand, then sat back down at the table. "I'm a soldier," he assured him. "That's what we do." And mostly, that was true. After all, that night at the pool was hardly the first time he'd nearly died. But war made sense. Even the danger that came from Sherlock's normal cases made sense. There was a senselessness to Moriarty, so different from the manic insanity of Sherlock, that shook him and left him feeling uncomfortable and out of sorts.

"I do know you better than that," he said. "I wasn't even upset with you. I just...wasn't expecting it, I suppose."

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reasonbackward
2010-09-08 06:43 am UTC (link)

"Now who's the one near quoting?" Sherlock asked, arching an eyebrow at John, his tone expressing the vague amusement that he felt before John's last statement. Well, that was just ridiculous. If John hadn't been upset, why had he acted as such? That was how he'd been acting, wasn't it? It certainly didn't seem pleased at all, and it was...more than annoyed, not quite the same as frustrated, or irritated. It was amazing how many different types of displeasure he seemed to bring out in John while none were ever very serious. And why, if he hadn't been upset, he had went to retire while making it seem as though he had been the cause of it all?

The deep confusion and thought at the situation was etched clearly on Sherlock's face, mounting slowly as it did in children who were struggling to grasp a particularly complex puzzle that they weren't capable of dealing with yet, before his gaze snapped up to John, "We should get you a new therapist. A proper one this time."

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hisbestman
2010-09-08 06:22 pm UTC (link)

"There is a huge difference between what I said and what you said," he said with a hint of exasperation in his tone. He watched Sherlock's thought process, wondering when he'd become so good at reading the detective, and sighed. "Not being upset with you is not the same as not being upset," he told him. "And stop trying to figure me out. Yes, you're a terribly frustrating and oft infuriating individual, but I am quite used to it and wouldn't change it." He paused. "Well...I might change the bit where you sulk when I attempt to date people. It does nothing to alter the mistaken perception people have that we're a couple."

He gave Sherlock a look. "I do not need a therapist," he insisted, "proper or otherwise. I hate being psychoanalysed and I hate talking about my feelings, particularly with strangers who are just going to write it all down and pick it apart. For heaven's sake, Sherlock, we're British. Repression is something instilled in us at birth, if not before. Therapy goes against everything I believe."

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reasonbackward
2010-09-08 07:08 pm UTC (link)

"The chief difference between me and a therapist being that I don't need to write it all down in order to pick it apart? If we found one who was willing to work from memory, would that make a difference?" Sherlock asked, honestly curious. Mycroft's few attempts to get him to see a therapist had been disastrous. Well, at least as far as Mycroft was concerned. Sherlock had been convinced that he'd made quite a lot more progress in sorting out the first's unfulfilled marriage issues and the second's resolved sexual feelings towards his sister than any therapist in the world could have boasted. Even if sidetracking the discussions had only been an effort to make sure that they didn't have to talk about his substance abuse issues and self-destructive behavior like Mycroft wished, that didn't mean it wasn't a productive hour.

"And you could stop attempting to date people," Sherlock suggested in what he considered was a helpful way. "Then you would have neither problem to contend with."

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