Fic: Bel Canto - 12/16 (BBC Sherlock)

[bendingsignpost]

Title: Bel Canto
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 7.6k out of 126k
Betas: vyctori, seijichan, lifeonmars
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Summary: After years of waiting for wealthy patrons to faint, Dr John Watson discovers a far more interesting patient in the opera house basement. (AU through a Phantom of the Opera lens.)
Warnings: Violence, internalized homophobia, eventual character

Comments

[rachelindeed]

Hmmm. This chapter made me think of this exchange from "The Reichenbach Fall":

JOHN: Can he do that? Completely change his identity; make you the criminal?
SHERLOCK: He's got my whole life story. That’s what you do when you sell a big lie; you wrap it up in the truth to make it more palatable.

I feel like the one big thing that Sherlock needs to understand is that his actions outside of the basement constituted selling John a big lie, regardless of the fact that it was wrapped in the truth. And the one big thing John needs to understand is that Sherlock's identity lie was the only lie, and everything else he saw was true to Sherlock's personality and life story.

I feel like neither of them are doing a good job of recognizing the other one's perspective. To John, Sherlock's behavior seems so obviously malevolent that he never actually spells out his grievances, despite Sherlock asking him to several times (in Box 5, on stakeout). That's on him. And Sherlock seems as far as ever from understanding the depth of his own betrayal of John, and continues to trivialize John's issues in this chapter, insisting that he did nothing but give John what he wants. They are not arguing well, it seems to me; they are not communicating their grievances in a way conducive to figuring out if they are irreconcilable or if they are capable of being addressed. And when Sherlock says to John that he is a bad risk and that Sherlock has come to see how much he overestimated him...that is the most depressed I've been this entire fic, actually. That kind of abuse is a terrible way to argue, and watching these people be hurtful to each other is hard.

I felt like not a lot of progress was being made here; perhaps because the kinds of things people were telling John didn't seem to me to be getting to the point. So it turns out Sherlock actually has two voices and didn't invent them specifically for John...He used something real to deceive, instead of creating something false. But it's still deceit, so it's not going to address John's primary issue. Sherlock was "relaxed" at Christmas, but didn't drop into the Vernet voice except when John was asleep in another room. It was not unusual for him to wear gloves as Holmes, but he made sure to wear them all the time to prevent John from seeing his scar (no one else would have recognized it -- he wasn't hiding it from anyone but John). He wasn't creating false personas, okay. But he was being deliberately manipulative in another way; by carefully deploying true aspects of himself to cover his secret identity.

So, if any progress is being made here, it must be that John might be beginning to see that the identity lies were wrapped in truth, and that the parts of Vernet he loved were real. But since the deliberate deceit was real, too, I'm not sure how far that's going to get us, especially if Sherlock hasn't yet caught a clue regarding his own mistakes.

[rachelindeed]

Hello! I had some lovely visitors stop by, so I sent my previous comment without finishing it. Have a few more reactions! :)

They turn the corner. “I wasn’t kidding about the ghost coming after you.”

“I’ll move my valuables and beware of smoke bombs.”

*dies*

He smiles at Mr Johnson and Mrs Hudson, but, as John reaches the door, says, “Dr Watson, surely someone is in need of you elsewhere.”

Maddening, yes, but Mycroft loves his brother and John hurt him and John will therefore be elegantly eviscerated at every opportunity. This is so Mycroft's brand of antagonism.

In rereading Sherlock and John's argument, more progress was made than I initially realized; John does finally list his grievances, although the real one - "you pretended to be someone else, and took advantage of me" - still doesn't seem to be coming across to Holmes. And John is beginning to see that Vernet was not fabricated, at least, but it's not the man's skills that he thought falsified. It's his relationship with John, and his intentions toward him. But at least he can feel that the muse relationship is real. He is useful to Holmes, there's no denying it. And useful is something he wants to be, although the old canonical reproach - "You use me, but do not trust me" - seems particularly apt here.

I do like that Sherlock's love cry seems to boil down to: "I am in work with you. You and I work. I wanted you in my music. I wanted you in my investigation. That I wanted you in my bed was a self-evident but secondary corollary. The same was true for you on all counts. Your denial on all counts is idiotic, QED. Come to dinner."

It will never work. But even now I kind of understand where he's coming from.

Thanks again for writing!