Sherlock Fic: Novelty and the Married Man
Title: Novelty and the Married Man
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Novelty fades. Reality is painful. Stability is stagnation. Newness is John’s only hope.
A/N: My January entry for thegameison_sh - theme: 'new'.
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Driving will always be a novelty to John. There’s the clunk of the door shutting, the whisper of the seat-belt, and the rich click of it locking into place. The ignition stirs, fires, and John is seventeen again; ready to screech away from the testing centre at seventy miles an hour and leave anyone or anything that can’t keep up far behind him.
He doesn’t drive much though - he’s scared that the novelty will fade in the dirty reality of insurance comparison websites, congestion charges, and £1.28 per litre petrol.
Being a married man is a novelty just the same.
Sarah has tanned to the colour of expensive coffee with just a dash of cream. His favourite honeymoon picture - him in the pink Hawaiian shirt, her in the pale blue sundress - sits in a new silver frame on his desk. He polishes his finger-prints off it in the morning as he logs on to his computer. It catches his eye every time he swivels his chair.
Wife. Mrs. Watson. Married. They’re all novel words. He still stumbles over them as his mouth tries to fit them around the pleased smile that’s taking up all the room. When he goes to the newsagents, he does so as a married man. When he walks in the park, it’s a married man that does so. If a bee stings him while he’s there, it’s stinging a married man.
But his wife is in constant use, so to speak. He can’t lock Sarah away in a garage and save her for special occasions. Sarah is a living, breathing part of his life. Her tan will fade, he’ll stop noticing the twinkle of her engagement ring, and in a few months he’ll go for days without registering their photo on his desk. It’ll be part of the background furniture, and so will she.
The newlywed sex will become married people sex, and when he talks to his Rugby mates the phrase “C’mon guys, I’m a married man!” will lose its exclamation mark and gain a sigh for punctuation instead.
Novelty will become reality. Or even worse, it will become stability.
He wonders if Sherlock will be talking to him again by that point.
Of course, it’s not easy to figure out why Sherlock isn’t talking to him precisely. No two of Sherlock’s sulks are the same. It’s been two months since the wedding, four since the engagement, six since they nearly got blown up... John and Sherlock, that is. Sarah would have put her foot down about a second attempt on her life. She’d jokingly suggested he change his vows to ‘love, honour, and not get myself involved in crazy adventures.’ She’d been joking about the vows, but not about the adventures.
He’d been nearly blown up, she reminds him. That was why he’d stepped things up with her at all. He’d needed more normality in his life. They’d got engaged. Then eloped.
Then Sherlock had stopped talking to him.
The problem was with Sherlock one never knew whether he wasn’t talking to you because you’d upset him or because he was plotting to take down an Argentinian crime ring and saw no reason to speak to anyone who didn’t know the Spanish for ‘Can I have directions to the nearest crime ring to the hotel?’
He has to hand it to Sherlock, there’s always something new going on with him.
That… is a dangerous thought. His mouth dries whenever he thinks it.
The novelty would never wear off with Sherlock. New adventures. New deductions. His mind never thought the same thought twice. He was a car that shot through a thirty zone at a hundred miles an hour and never got caught. He would never be part of the furniture because when Sherlock was around nobody gave a damn about the furnishings.
John had traded in genuine newness for novelty; for a nice wife and the vague idea of purchasing an economic family Estate he’d feel a traitor to his teenage self for sitting in. He’d done it because new was hard and novelty is easy. People expect novelty to wear off and for you to embrace stability. Novelty is normal. Newness is… explosive.
All it would take is one text. He could go back to it.
It would upset Sarah, but she’s still living in the novelty of having a husband. Sooner or later she’ll have to face reality.
Novelty fades. Reality is painful. Stability is stagnation.
Newness is John’s only hope.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Novelty fades. Reality is painful. Stability is stagnation. Newness is John’s only hope.
A/N: My January entry for thegameison_sh - theme: 'new'.
---
Driving will always be a novelty to John. There’s the clunk of the door shutting, the whisper of the seat-belt, and the rich click of it locking into place. The ignition stirs, fires, and John is seventeen again; ready to screech away from the testing centre at seventy miles an hour and leave anyone or anything that can’t keep up far behind him.
He doesn’t drive much though - he’s scared that the novelty will fade in the dirty reality of insurance comparison websites, congestion charges, and £1.28 per litre petrol.
Being a married man is a novelty just the same.
Sarah has tanned to the colour of expensive coffee with just a dash of cream. His favourite honeymoon picture - him in the pink Hawaiian shirt, her in the pale blue sundress - sits in a new silver frame on his desk. He polishes his finger-prints off it in the morning as he logs on to his computer. It catches his eye every time he swivels his chair.
Wife. Mrs. Watson. Married. They’re all novel words. He still stumbles over them as his mouth tries to fit them around the pleased smile that’s taking up all the room. When he goes to the newsagents, he does so as a married man. When he walks in the park, it’s a married man that does so. If a bee stings him while he’s there, it’s stinging a married man.
But his wife is in constant use, so to speak. He can’t lock Sarah away in a garage and save her for special occasions. Sarah is a living, breathing part of his life. Her tan will fade, he’ll stop noticing the twinkle of her engagement ring, and in a few months he’ll go for days without registering their photo on his desk. It’ll be part of the background furniture, and so will she.
The newlywed sex will become married people sex, and when he talks to his Rugby mates the phrase “C’mon guys, I’m a married man!” will lose its exclamation mark and gain a sigh for punctuation instead.
Novelty will become reality. Or even worse, it will become stability.
He wonders if Sherlock will be talking to him again by that point.
Of course, it’s not easy to figure out why Sherlock isn’t talking to him precisely. No two of Sherlock’s sulks are the same. It’s been two months since the wedding, four since the engagement, six since they nearly got blown up... John and Sherlock, that is. Sarah would have put her foot down about a second attempt on her life. She’d jokingly suggested he change his vows to ‘love, honour, and not get myself involved in crazy adventures.’ She’d been joking about the vows, but not about the adventures.
He’d been nearly blown up, she reminds him. That was why he’d stepped things up with her at all. He’d needed more normality in his life. They’d got engaged. Then eloped.
Then Sherlock had stopped talking to him.
The problem was with Sherlock one never knew whether he wasn’t talking to you because you’d upset him or because he was plotting to take down an Argentinian crime ring and saw no reason to speak to anyone who didn’t know the Spanish for ‘Can I have directions to the nearest crime ring to the hotel?’
He has to hand it to Sherlock, there’s always something new going on with him.
That… is a dangerous thought. His mouth dries whenever he thinks it.
The novelty would never wear off with Sherlock. New adventures. New deductions. His mind never thought the same thought twice. He was a car that shot through a thirty zone at a hundred miles an hour and never got caught. He would never be part of the furniture because when Sherlock was around nobody gave a damn about the furnishings.
John had traded in genuine newness for novelty; for a nice wife and the vague idea of purchasing an economic family Estate he’d feel a traitor to his teenage self for sitting in. He’d done it because new was hard and novelty is easy. People expect novelty to wear off and for you to embrace stability. Novelty is normal. Newness is… explosive.
All it would take is one text. He could go back to it.
It would upset Sarah, but she’s still living in the novelty of having a husband. Sooner or later she’ll have to face reality.
Novelty fades. Reality is painful. Stability is stagnation.
Newness is John’s only hope.