Man's Original Virtue - pt2
anonymous
October 18 2010, 11:08:05 UTC
John Watson is 5 years old when he and his sister realise exactly how abnormal he is.
“Change the channel,” Harriet says (she is still Harriet at this point. She likes My Little Pony and loves Disney’s Robin Hood).
John gets up and changes it, even though he’s twice as far away from the set as Harry is. There’s less on ITV than there was on the BBC, though. It’s just the news.
“Change it back,” Harry says again.
He does so.
She likes this game. By the fourth time she has told John to change the channel he sticks his bottom lip out, determined to tell her to do it herself. He manages five seconds that feel like hours, before the pressure in his head makes him turn around and walk back to the television.
After he’s changed the channel for the ninth time, he’s crying, but he’s still moving. Harriet always waits for him to sit back down before she tells him to get back up again.
Half way back, before she can order him again, he leaps at her, abandoning resistance in favour of attack. He pulls her hair and she slaps at him angrily.
“Get off me!” she yells, and before he can do anything else, he’s already moving away from her. He wants to hit her, but...
His mother finds him two hours later in the corner of his bedroom, huddled in on himself and crying.
“Don’t cry.”
He forces himself to stop.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. She is warm and she smells of washing up liquid. “Tell me what’s wrong, sweetheart.”
He doesn’t want to - Harriet hates getting into trouble - but he tells her anyway. He can’t stop himself. The words trip over themselves and come out in a flow that’s unstoppable. His mother listens to his hiccups, her face drawn.
Harriet gets bread and butter for dinner that night, and shut in her room. Mummy asks her how she would feel if she was made to do things whether she wanted to or not. Harriet points out that she doesn’t want to be trapped in her room. The resulting argument shakes the house to its foundations.
Three days later, after many hushed conversations in the kitchen, Mummy and Daddy take them both to one side and explain that John is very special.
They always say that, for the rest of their lives ‘you’re very special’. But what they mean is cursed. ‘You’re cursed’.
Daddy upset a fairy (he’d been drinking, hadn’t he always?) and the fairy had cursed John with obedience.
Harriet was forbidden to use this knowledge, which she was free to ignore if she wanted to, and John was forbidden from telling anyone, which meant he never could, and life went on as usual.
But John always let Harriet have the biggest slices of cake.
*
“Stop,” Sherlock calls. John is half way out of the door and he wills himself to take the next step, though he knows he won’t. He freezes and refuses to look back. Sherlock had only said ‘stop’ after all. He hadn’t given any indication of turning round or coming back.
It’s the little rebellions that he has to make to keep himself sane.
“You can’t go out,” Sherlock tells him.
“Sarah’s waiting,” John replies, though he already knows that he’s not going. He probably wouldn’t even if he could.
“Text her, tell her you can’t come.”
John lets out an exaggerated sigh, but his hand’s already in his pocket, fishing out his phone and his fingers don’t hesitate on the keys.
Sorry. Can’t make it. Reschedule?
He resigns himself to Sherlock’s company, which isn’t such a bad sentence when he thinks about it, and shuts the door. He turns round and Sherlock is watching him intently.
“Come and sit down,” Sherlock tells him.
There is a moment of panic in that moment where John thinks ‘does he know?’
But after he has sat himself down on the sofa, Sherlock starts off on a monologue about the indecently inept criminals that Lestrade asked him to track down last week.
“Change the channel,” Harriet says (she is still Harriet at this point. She likes My Little Pony and loves Disney’s Robin Hood).
John gets up and changes it, even though he’s twice as far away from the set as Harry is. There’s less on ITV than there was on the BBC, though. It’s just the news.
“Change it back,” Harry says again.
He does so.
She likes this game. By the fourth time she has told John to change the channel he sticks his bottom lip out, determined to tell her to do it herself. He manages five seconds that feel like hours, before the pressure in his head makes him turn around and walk back to the television.
After he’s changed the channel for the ninth time, he’s crying, but he’s still moving. Harriet always waits for him to sit back down before she tells him to get back up again.
Half way back, before she can order him again, he leaps at her, abandoning resistance in favour of attack. He pulls her hair and she slaps at him angrily.
“Get off me!” she yells, and before he can do anything else, he’s already moving away from her. He wants to hit her, but...
His mother finds him two hours later in the corner of his bedroom, huddled in on himself and crying.
“Don’t cry.”
He forces himself to stop.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. She is warm and she smells of washing up liquid. “Tell me what’s wrong, sweetheart.”
He doesn’t want to - Harriet hates getting into trouble - but he tells her anyway. He can’t stop himself. The words trip over themselves and come out in a flow that’s unstoppable. His mother listens to his hiccups, her face drawn.
Harriet gets bread and butter for dinner that night, and shut in her room. Mummy asks her how she would feel if she was made to do things whether she wanted to or not. Harriet points out that she doesn’t want to be trapped in her room. The resulting argument shakes the house to its foundations.
Three days later, after many hushed conversations in the kitchen, Mummy and Daddy take them both to one side and explain that John is very special.
They always say that, for the rest of their lives ‘you’re very special’. But what they mean is cursed. ‘You’re cursed’.
Daddy upset a fairy (he’d been drinking, hadn’t he always?) and the fairy had cursed John with obedience.
Harriet was forbidden to use this knowledge, which she was free to ignore if she wanted to, and John was forbidden from telling anyone, which meant he never could, and life went on as usual.
But John always let Harriet have the biggest slices of cake.
*
“Stop,” Sherlock calls. John is half way out of the door and he wills himself to take the next step, though he knows he won’t. He freezes and refuses to look back. Sherlock had only said ‘stop’ after all. He hadn’t given any indication of turning round or coming back.
It’s the little rebellions that he has to make to keep himself sane.
“You can’t go out,” Sherlock tells him.
“Sarah’s waiting,” John replies, though he already knows that he’s not going. He probably wouldn’t even if he could.
“Text her, tell her you can’t come.”
John lets out an exaggerated sigh, but his hand’s already in his pocket, fishing out his phone and his fingers don’t hesitate on the keys.
Sorry. Can’t make it. Reschedule?
He resigns himself to Sherlock’s company, which isn’t such a bad sentence when he thinks about it, and shuts the door. He turns round and Sherlock is watching him intently.
“Come and sit down,” Sherlock tells him.
There is a moment of panic in that moment where John thinks ‘does he know?’
But after he has sat himself down on the sofa, Sherlock starts off on a monologue about the indecently inept criminals that Lestrade asked him to track down last week.
It’s fine. Sherlock has no idea.
*
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