Sherlock fandom. (TW: domestic violence)
Building Walls
Both had been scared as boys. John of the dark, Sherlock of the light.
John’s vivid imagination made up monsters under the bed and kidnappers in the woods around the tent when the Watsons went camping.
“Fear is a weakness,” John’s father growled when his son was shaking and sobbing, terrified of the horrors of the darkness around him.
The solution was to beat the fear out of John while using spite words like coward, squeamish, queer, faggot, weak.
It took some time before it worked. For every stroke from his father’s hand or belt, John’s protecting wall was reinforced with a new brick, until his father was satisfied, and John’s fear had dissipated. So it seemed anyway.
***
Sherlock was a night owl from an early age but was forced to live in the light where others could see his aberrant behaviour. His cousins, aunts and uncles all called him freak, queer, weak, abnormal.
He just wanted to be left alone with his experiments, which he preferred to conduct in the dark hours.
“Fearing the light is a sickness,” his mother told him, and caught him in an iron grip before he could abscond and ordered him to sit in the conservatory with her and his cousins for hours.
When he finally was released, his head throbbed, his eyes stung, and he felt bone tired. He cried when he woke in the morning, realising that he’d been too exhausted to escape sleep.
“You must not let them see your weakness, brother mine,” Mycroft advised him, so Sherlock built a wall around himself and called it his Mind Palace.
***
In the dark Afghan desert, John met many soldiers who were afraid of what they could not see, and with good reason. He knew he should be terrified, and deep down he was, but he had a responsibility as a captain. His wall was strong and didn’t crack until a bullet came out of the velvet night and found his shoulder.
Back in the radiant city that was London, John’s wall crumbled. His mind was a dark hole even if he was surrounded by light.
“Nothing ever happens to me,” became a mantra he lived by, until he met Mike Stamford, and later Sherlock Holmes.
The brief and totally ridiculous encounter in the lab at Barts, lifted a vail, and a glimpse of sunshine entered John’s mind.
***
For years Sherlock lived in the blissful darkness, but people still interfered and made his life miserable. His mother and brother in particular. So, he sought out company that at first was a relief, but later put him on the path towards addiction and destruction.
Stumbling over Greg Lestrade’s crime scene, high as a kite, but still capable of observing and deducing what had happened, saved Sherlock’s life. For the first time in years, someone was interested in the knowledge he possessed; signs that a victim had been poisoned, different traces of mud or ash.
“Get clean, and I’ll call you when we’re out of our depths,” Lestrade said.
Mycroft probably ensured Lestrade’s promotion after that, when Sherlock explained, and begged Mycroft to take him to rehab.
The incongruous scale Sherlock used to categorise the crimes Lestrade called him about, wasn’t all about how interesting a case was, but had more to do with the time of day. Only a serial killer could make Sherlock attend a crime scene in broad daylight. The darkness was his friend, and his dramatic persona thrived and added mystery to it all when he whirled around in his beloved Belstaff and polished Italian shoes.
John was like the sun and should frighten Sherlock with his warmth and incandescence. Instead, Sherlock felt an instant calmness fall over him when his fingers brushed John’s as he took the phone John offered him the day they met.
***
John’s fear of the dark night vanished when he saw Sherlock together with Jeff Hope, and his hand was steady when he shot the awful cabbie.
Sherlock’s case scale suddenly changed, and he and John turned up at crime scenes at all hours, even when the sun shone bright and clear.
The only fear they had left, was losing each other.
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