Fic: Mary
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Story Title: Mary
Character/Relationships: John, Sherlock, Mary Morstan/Watson; John/Mary
Rating: PG
Summary: He'd had relationships before, of course he had. He'd really liked some of them. But Mary, Mary is different.
AN: This was written for challenge 7 of round 1 of tvnetwork2_las. The prompt was "Blurred lines". This was heavily influenced by the Arthur Conan Doyle stories, particularly the 'Sign of Four'.
Mary
When he first meets Sherlock - first moves in with him, learns with him, regains his ability to enjoy the world with him - he tries to keep Sherlock separate from the rest of his life. By and large, this is an absolute failure. Within a month, all his colleagues know Sherlock by face, his friends crack jokes about them practically being married and Harry, after one meeting, had slapped him round the face, insisted that she never meet him again and from then on referred to his flatmate only as 'That man'. But after the complete disaster that is his relationship with Sarah, he becomes quite good at keeping Sherlock out of his love life.
Dates are made on nights when Sherlock will be busy or, preferably, out of the country, and he never offers to bring them back to his flat. Relationships stay light and casual and he quickly learns to keep talk of death, destruction and the fact that he lives with an obsessive sociopath with a collection of body parts and a penchant for recreating crime scenes in their living room - complete with real blood stains - to a minimum.
But Mary, Mary is different.
Well, not to begin with. Alright she's gorgeous and intelligent and has enough of a kickass attitude that she can feed into his Bond-girl fantasies, but it's not like she's the first woman he's ever met like
that. And even though they meet on a case - she comes to them looking for her father's legacy, and leaves knowing he was a criminal whose stolen treasures are beyond her reach - he still manages to keep her away from Sherlock by going to visit her and talk to her and comfort her alone (Sherlock gives him that amused look that says he quite clearly isn't fooled by John's lame excuses but he keeps his distance anyway). To start with, therefore, it's exactly like all those other relationships.
And then, after their sixth date, she asks to come back to his place to see Sherlock. And, eventually, he agrees. Part of him thinks that this will be the end of everything but, instead, she makes jokes about the bullet holes and seems genuinely interested in Sherlock's murder stories and before he knows it she's in and out of their flat as much as he is in and out of hers. He can't believe that after spending so long trying to hide Sherlock from her, she seems to find him as interesting as he does and Sherlock, however much he tries to pretend otherwise, clearly finds himself appreciating her the same way he does Mrs Hudson - rather dismissively, and generally from a distance, but appreciating nonetheless.
He goes through the motions of introducing her to his mates - they love her - and Harry - they maintain a polite conversation and Mary merely gives him a sympathetic look and helps load her into a taxi when she has far too much - but, really, he knows the minute that she breaks down the barrier between girlfriend and Sherlock that this is someone special.
He goes to the jewellery shop and picks up an engagement ring.
Story Title: Mary
Character/Relationships: John, Sherlock, Mary Morstan/Watson; John/Mary
Rating: PG
Summary: He'd had relationships before, of course he had. He'd really liked some of them. But Mary, Mary is different.
AN: This was written for challenge 7 of round 1 of tvnetwork2_las. The prompt was "Blurred lines". This was heavily influenced by the Arthur Conan Doyle stories, particularly the 'Sign of Four'.
Mary
When he first meets Sherlock - first moves in with him, learns with him, regains his ability to enjoy the world with him - he tries to keep Sherlock separate from the rest of his life. By and large, this is an absolute failure. Within a month, all his colleagues know Sherlock by face, his friends crack jokes about them practically being married and Harry, after one meeting, had slapped him round the face, insisted that she never meet him again and from then on referred to his flatmate only as 'That man'. But after the complete disaster that is his relationship with Sarah, he becomes quite good at keeping Sherlock out of his love life.
Dates are made on nights when Sherlock will be busy or, preferably, out of the country, and he never offers to bring them back to his flat. Relationships stay light and casual and he quickly learns to keep talk of death, destruction and the fact that he lives with an obsessive sociopath with a collection of body parts and a penchant for recreating crime scenes in their living room - complete with real blood stains - to a minimum.
But Mary, Mary is different.
Well, not to begin with. Alright she's gorgeous and intelligent and has enough of a kickass attitude that she can feed into his Bond-girl fantasies, but it's not like she's the first woman he's ever met like
that. And even though they meet on a case - she comes to them looking for her father's legacy, and leaves knowing he was a criminal whose stolen treasures are beyond her reach - he still manages to keep her away from Sherlock by going to visit her and talk to her and comfort her alone (Sherlock gives him that amused look that says he quite clearly isn't fooled by John's lame excuses but he keeps his distance anyway). To start with, therefore, it's exactly like all those other relationships.
And then, after their sixth date, she asks to come back to his place to see Sherlock. And, eventually, he agrees. Part of him thinks that this will be the end of everything but, instead, she makes jokes about the bullet holes and seems genuinely interested in Sherlock's murder stories and before he knows it she's in and out of their flat as much as he is in and out of hers. He can't believe that after spending so long trying to hide Sherlock from her, she seems to find him as interesting as he does and Sherlock, however much he tries to pretend otherwise, clearly finds himself appreciating her the same way he does Mrs Hudson - rather dismissively, and generally from a distance, but appreciating nonetheless.
He goes through the motions of introducing her to his mates - they love her - and Harry - they maintain a polite conversation and Mary merely gives him a sympathetic look and helps load her into a taxi when she has far too much - but, really, he knows the minute that she breaks down the barrier between girlfriend and Sherlock that this is someone special.
He goes to the jewellery shop and picks up an engagement ring.