No one mourns a piece of broken machinery (1/1)
Rating - PG
Word count - 2009
Summary - Sherlock is watching John standing over his grave and does what Sherlock does best: thinks too much.
Genre- Character study, tragedy, friendship
I am waiting for him.
I remember the first time I met him. A sweep over and I knew so much.
(I had thought.)
*
“It’s a bit different to my day.”
“Oh, you have no idea.”
“Mike. Can I borrow your phone? No signal.”
“What's wrong with the landline?”
(Imbecile. The amount of idiots in the world does make things easier though. Of course my phone had had signal; we both had had the same provider. Do people not notice these things?)
“I prefer to text.”
“Sorry. It is in my coat.”
(I had known. Greasy hair, no shower. Forced to quickly leave the house in the morning then. Twiddling wedding ring; an argument with the wife. Avoiding her. So coat, with mobile in, was conveniently forgotten downstairs.)
I cannot help but smile, a little proud of myself.
(Gosh, I had really needed someone to show off to.)
“No here, use mine.”
(John.)
(I am still waiting for him)
*
He does admittedly have no appointment, but it would be convenient if he kept to the logical consequences of his character. He is now a minute, and counting, out of the time window I calculated for him to arrive in - based on all I know about his habits, his preferences, him (which is a lot). Rude.
*
“Oh.”
*
Uncharacteristic of the current me: there is no watching how he handles it, the pattern of his blinking or the tone of his voice. I had barely looked at him. I had thought him boring. Boring, boring, boring. How?
*
I just take it and parrot the obligatory: “Thank you.”
I needed John Watson’s phone - mine is fine - to learn more. I do: drunk brother.
(Sister; it makes my toes curl even now).
I return it to him, and continue looking into my microscope.
(How?)
*
Though I still stress the importance of details, this is an example of how they can rob one of the larger picture. The markings of daily habit - the scratched phone; the dirty cuff; the creased shirt -, which while useful, are mere trivia when used with extraordinary people like John Watson. After all, it was details that had led me to conclude that John Watson was boring.
How had I missed him? While considering, clicking and cataloguing the facts about him (machine), I had quickly creased my eyes over crawling bacteria , rather than taking in real man, underneath the facts. The man who would change my life. No wonder John got frustrated with me. I am such an idiot at times.
I had found comfort in the bacteria, emotionless bacteria, more than their use of solving the case really allowed. It still angers me now: the unfounded arrogance of those with full emotion, assuming that anything with little feeling is any less alive (Less significant? Less needed? Less wanted?) than themselves. They do not realise that me, bacteria, and the like, are scientifically living: we move, respire, secrete, require nutrition, excrete, reproduce and grow. Donovan and Anderson see me as some form of bacteria: clever, dangerous but repulsive (I am a robot, freak, computer). When dead, missed as much as a broken piece of machinery.
I had thought everyone would see me like that. No wonder: at the time, bacteria were my only non-judgemental constant; I had thought that I was more similar to them than I was to any human being. How had they had dominance over John though? I should have cherished my opportunity when I had it; I can’t see him now and, even when I do, only from afar. Where is he?
It took me only twenty four hours for John Watson to become my new constant; he taught me the human in me.
The first thing that excited me was his limp. Now I see the full extent of the paradox; John Watson, the most human human being I have ever known, a war-addict; however much it hurts him - nightmares; sweat, pulse, screams - he craves more. And so the addict found me; he needed a fix and I was it. Nothing more. And I, the opposite, needed… I am not sure - him? Him.
I sit in the graveyard, itching for a joint. The drug-addict and the war-addict. A psychologist’s fantasy. The bigger itch, though, has always been for the work. The drugs have always been secondary to the game - when the game is paused, there must be something to play. John understood that. I have managed to put off both, though, since the fall. It would draw attention to me, alive. And then John would be dead. I never knew how easy addictions could be to resist. If only Mycroft had known the cure was holding John’s life in the balance, his life would have been much easier.
So that instead of craving a peep at bacteria, I now have to force my gaze down a microscope to prevent myself submitting to another glance (a fix) at him.
When I explained that I had, at first, rejected him for bacteria, he had paused the TV. You - a bacterium, Sherlock? He says. He shakes his head. No. The conversation that followed left our takeaways cold and forgotten, along with our former positions, as he had ended up next to me on the sofa, hand on my knee, repeating those three words again - not robot, freak, computer, but amazing, extraordinary, fantastic Of course you care. In your own way.
I told him how complexity excites me, but in the clear-cut mazes of logic rather than in the blinding hurricanes of emotion and care. Then I explain that he had replaced bacteria. And he says, “exactly, you care”, and I’m still not quite sure I understand him. I’m getting there though. Today, he has been proven right: why am I here? What could I logically gain? What is your reasonable explanation for sitting in a graveyard? Nothing but sentiment. Only for John, though: he had seen something in me that I, consulting detective, could not even recognise in myself, and had evoked it.
John Watson rewrites data, restarts the chemical reaction of my self-view: an exothermic, buzzing view of myself. He riips away Donovan and Anderson’s labels - robot, freak, computer - and had replaced them with his own - amazing, extraordinary, fantastic - he had also proved untrue what everybody had been accusing me of: that I was emotionless. John Watson. Paradox. Anomaly. My catalyst.
*
I am panicking slightly now. Hands. Shaking. Buying milk (no milk to buy; the one in the fridge is fresh; no rotting heads to ruin it); Mrs. Hudson fussing (took that into account); traffic (checked that too; smooth); an accident; a phone call; a child in danger; a coffee; lost the keys; lost the phone; a detour; snipers?
No. That cannot be true. (Please).
Time. 35 minutes late.
Why is he not here? (Frustrating). I need him.
Still, even now my mind has not caught its breath from its endless, sweaty wrestle with his character, with this brave, brave man who steps out and likes me (robot, freak, computer): I am still excited by another human being (not an enemy; a friend; not bacteria). Full throttle, he had taken me tumbling over the anomaly that was his personality - killer for me, saving my life, holding a gun and firing it with steely nerves - as that hateful pill hovered, clasped between my idiotic fingers, over my tongue.
(I had no idea, then, that my death could render anyone other than myself useless.)
Has it though? I had thought- His expression- That day- Where is he? Does he like me?
I am amazing, extraordinary and fantastic. His (John’s) words. That’s why I thought that he’d be here. I obviously calculated wrong-
And then his voice. All of a sudden. As real as if he were here.
There are lives at stake, Sherlock! Actual human live- J-just so I know- do you care about that at all?
It nearly makes me physically jerk.
Will caring about them help save them? I reply.
John had been forming his words to reply already, before mine had even hit him and then he had faltered as he had absorbed my what I had just said. Sh- His mouth had closed. Disappointment.
I had ignored the question do you care about that at all? I had replaced it with my own: is it practical to care?
I am amazing, extraordinary and fantastic - but I am also disappointing.. A freak. Her words. A boffin. Their words. A machine. His words. He is my only friend. I thought that I was one of his. As long as he is in the world, existing and being John Watson. How could I expect him to mourn me?
No one mourns a piece of broken machinery.
*
And then I see him. He is here; he is here; he is here. The shaking stops and I watch him, gradually, move from a slight blur in the forest to a figure. Closer and closer, clearer and clear, he comes. I can almost make out his face. His face; I’ve been desperate for it. The slight grimace. He limps past the real me, and heads towards where he thinks I am.. My grave. Sherlock Holmes.
I did not think his limp would be this bad. Why was it so? Why had I not foreseen this? Surely my ‘suicide’ had not emotionally compromised him to this extent? I blink. No, it must be that he is starved of danger. Five action-less days have been too much for him, surely, since I jumped.
I watch him now, as he turns and his hand flattens, rising almost halfway to his brow before he clenches it. Forever the soldier, itching for a salute. There is a small, military nod to the grave. Anxious eyes. Almost-always raised eyebrows are flat. He is folded in on himself. Creased. The curve of his nose is buried in his scarf-
His scarf?
He doesn’t have a scarf.
My scarf.
Breathing hitches. “John,” I mean to whisper but I say.
(I am torturing him.)
(His limp has returned for me)
(What does he see in me to allow this level of grief?)
And in that moment, I want nothing more than to run up to him, screaming “I’m alive”.
(Would I really jeopardise his life for one more moment with him? Am I that selfish? Am I that much of a sociopath?)
Suddenly he turns back, and stares at my grave. Indecision?
(Why is he doing this for me?)
He blinks, heavily.
(The extraordinary John Watson, for me. Me, the one who had not looked up at him, had dismissed him for bacteria. Only a piece of machinery could be capable of that. Robot Freak. Computer.)
He tenses.
(What did he see in me that night that no one else did? That intense, burning care? For him? Is it a lie?)
He takes a breath.
(No one mourns a broken piece of machinery.)
I read his lips as he speaks. “One more miracle.”
(Except him.)