The significance of the heartbeat sound 

(mostly in A Scandal in Belgravia)

 (Sherlock Meta by Loudest Subtext In Television)

lindefishway asked:

hello!i love yor metas. can i ask you? during the series we can often hear some heartbeat. so...if s2 is from John's pov, does this mean that we hear his heart? a lot of it during sh+irene scenes. (I'm only on 56min, but I have already counted 46!+ don't forget music=heartbeat). Or are they belong to sh? it also a lot of it in s3 >.< what do you think? sorry for my english^^

Loudest Subtext In Television:

Thank you!

We get the heartbeat sound in the soundtrack a LOT starting from A Scandal in Belgravia forward. It might be in the soundtrack even before that, but I would need to rewatch.

The heartbeat sound is used for whatever character is on the screen. In ASiB we hear it for Sherlock, Irene, and John just off the top off my head, and possibly other people. It’s not exactly accurate to say that any episode is from any single character’s perspective, as they always jump around a bit. We get a lot of Sherlock’s perspective in all the episodes, for example, so we need to note the context and camera perspective every time.

 The heartbeat sound is used broadly to signify anything of significance, i.e. anything that would strike someone strongly. That makes it difficult to attribute special meaning to it in most circumstances. For example, Sherlock gets a heartbeat sometimes when he has an epiphany, Irene gets a heartbeat when Sherlock discovers her safe and her heart keeps pounding while he works out her code, there were heartbeats all over the place when the CIA had guns on people, the CIA guy’s heart beats a few times when Sherlock is telling Lestrade his (future) injuries over the phone, and so on.

The time we need to pay attention to the heartbeat is when there isn’t an obvious reason for it:

- In ASiB, Sherlock gets a few stray heartbeats over time when he’s deducing naked Irene and doesn’t know what she’s trying to pull… but also when he’s deducing familiar, comforting John – and then he gets three very close together. Why does Sherlock’s heart pound when he gives John a full body once-over?

- After John hauls Sherlock back to bed, John says he’ll be in the next room if Sherlock needs him. Sherlock says, “Why would I need you?” and John says, “No reason at all,” and shuts the door – and we get a huge heartbeat with the sound of the door closing. Both of them are on screen and it could apply to either or both of them: it’s either a blow to John that Sherlock doesn’t need him, or a blow to Sherlock that he needs John and John is leaving, or both.

- We get the heartbeat for John in moments that shouldn’t be anxious for him at all. Right after John figures out the text alert sound is Irene, Mycroft tells Sherlock he’s to stay away from Irene Adler. Sherlock says, “Will I?” and we get a big reaction shot of John with a heartbeat; he’s sitting, and behind Sherlock and Mycroft, so it’s not natural to cut to John and do this, but they did it.

- We get another heartbeat when Sherlock shuts his bedroom door in John’s face at Christmas, after John lets us know he’s been counting Irene’s texts and says, “Do you have a reply?” and tries to overhear Sherlock’s phone conversation.

- We get another out of place heartbeat from John after Sherlock says to Irene, “You’re rather good.” Why does that make John’s heart beat? A second later John gives them his hated middle name as a potential baby name. Hm.

- There is a HUGE heartbeat for John when Sherlock rattles off the first part of the Bond Air code and Sherlock looks at him. Oh, John. Those deductions really get your blood pumping, eh?

- We get a heartbeat for Mycroft after hanging up with Sherlock: Irene doesn’t matter to Mycroft, Mycroft is bothered that Sherlock is concerned about Irene Adler. We get another one at the morgue from Mycroft’s camera perspective when Mycroft is looking at Sherlock’s back before opening the door to go talk to him. We get another heartbeat for both of the Holmes brothers when Mycroft says, “Well. You barely knew her.”

- We also get a big heartbeat when Sherlock is casually talking about the hiker deduction and we see the hiker representing John’s heart. The hiker isn’t dead yet, so it seems to be a nod to the symbolism.

Worth noting: we don’t get a heartbeat when Irene kisses Sherlock on the cheek, and we don’t get a heartbeat when she tells Sherlock she’ll make him beg for mercy twice, even though we get other heartbeats in the same scene. (Some scenes are devoid of music and heartbeats both.) He stares her down so she doesn’t stab him with a syringe, but he’s apparently exactly as calm as he looks.

Why does Sherlock still trust Mary?

 (Sherlock Meta by Loudest Subtext In Television)

I don’t think he does. Sherlock trusts her until the moment she shoots him, and then no more. We get a lot of indications that Mary shooting Sherlock is The Fall 2.0, and part of that is that Sherlock is feeding John another lie after. I address it in the HLV portion of M-theory in MUCH more detail, including Sherlock’s various possible hypotheses about Mary, but I’ll give a quick summary:

* We get the Bart’s rooftop color shift and fall music when mind palace Molly tells Sherlock “fall now.” (Credit to mid0nz for this, as always.)
* We get Moriarty in Sherlock’s mind palace, quoting directly from when he told Sherlock to jump off Bart’s: “One little push, and off you pop.”
* This time around, Sherlock ACTUALLY gives John his miracle and stops being dead.
* This time around, John is still in danger from a sniper.
* This time around, Sherlock has to sell John another hurtful lie: Mary is trustworthy.

How do we know Sherlock doesn’t trust her? Tons of reasons and tells:

* Sherlock only comes back to life because he believes Mary is definitely a danger to John. Moriarty in his mind palace says, “It’s [John] that I worry about the most. That wife. You’re lettin’ him down, Sherlock. John Watson is definitely in danger.”

* Moriarty put a sniper on John. Somehow, in Sherlock’s absence, John ended up with a sniper. And Sherlock knows what we say about coincidences: the universe is rarely so lazy. To believe that Sherlock genuinely trusts Mary, we have to think he’s beyond stupid. (In M-theory I also talk about the fact that Sherlock was nervous about that sniper, which is why he lied to Anderson about how John was totally safe the whole time. Of course John wasn’t safe. If John had been safe, Sherlock would have contacted him; he missed John like crazy and admits he thought about contacting him a lot. Mary isn’t the same sniper, but Sherlock doesn’t know that; he doesn’t know who any of the snipers were or where they were. If he’d known about them beforehand, he wouldn’t have sent John out into the open, he’d have had John hide deep indoors somewhere.)

* Here is the mind palace clip right before Sherlock flees the hospital. Mary does not look sweet and sympathetic in his mind: she looks cold, guarded, and calculating. He knows she shot him with the precision to merely incapacitate him him, and makes the sniper connection. If Sherlock genuinely trusted her, and just thought, “Oh, she only shot me because she loves John so much!” he would have just stayed in the hospital. After all, Mary could have killed him in the hospital and she didn’t, so Sherlock is safe there. Sherlock flees because he needs to ensure John is safe; after all, if Sherlock wasn’t supposed to find out about Mary’s cover, then for all Sherlock knows she has no reason to keep John alive now that the cat’s out of the bag.

* Sherlock has to act like he forgives Mary or Mary will kill him. She makes that very clear, to his face, before they head to Baker Street. I’m frankly shocked that anyone takes Sherlock’s forgiveness at face value when he’s under that kind of duress.

* Sherlock knows that Mary has had her current identity for five years, and it wouldn’t be lost on him that’s within the time frame of Moriarty messing with him. He doesn’t need to know Moriarty is alive to find that suspicious.

* Sherlock is clearly angry with Mary here, not sympathetic. When she says her selfish bit about lying to John so she won’t lose him, Sherlock looks like he can hardly conceal his loathing. He isn’t moved by her depth of devotion or something.

* Sherlock has to pretend to trust Mary for the sake of the baby, and to hide the fact that he’s on to her while he tries to figure out who she’s working for and why. He doesn’t want Magnussen’s documents merely to protect the baby, he also wants to know everything about Mary’s past. When Mary puts the USB drive down on the table, Sherlock fixates on it, which the camera makes very obvious. He’s not cool with the assassin thing, and he doesn’t trust Mary to give them all the information he wants.

* We get a clue that Sherlock is carefully controlling his emotions and reactions to John and Mary when he snaps at Mrs. Hudson, “Then what exactly is the point of you?” Poor Mrs. Hudson is the only person he can take his anger out on.

I’ll quote a longer bit from M-theory here:

Sherlock is going to go on to make excuses for Mary, but we keep getting these hints that he’s absolutely livid. Sherlock has no reason to be that angry at Mrs. Hudson or John. Sherlock is angry at Mary. Remember, even if this had nothing to do with John, Sherlock has a very particular moral code. This is the guy who won’t work for Mycroft because people like Mycroft start wars. We have never seen Sherlock kill anyone before this episode, and he only almost killed Moriarty when he thought it was necessary to save lives. But Sherlock ensured Mrs. Hudson’s husband was executed (and it’s worth remembering Mr. Hudson was used as a mirror for Mary last episode). Sherlock went all the way to Minsk only to gladly turn down an unsympathetic case and send a murderer to his death. Sherlock didn’t care about the guard in Magnussen’s office because he was a white supremacist. Sherlock stepped on the cabbie’s wound when he was bleeding to death and demanded to be given a name. In short, Sherlock would never approve of contract killing unless he could be certain Mary only killed bad people, and Sherlock has never cared if murderers die. If Mary weren’t carrying John’s child, she would be the kind of person Sherlock would leave to die without a second thought. She’s no better than the Golem, and Sherlock did try to kill him: he shot at the Golem repeatedly when he ran away, and was frustrated he missed.

Past that, Sherlock is angry Mary shot him in the heart instead of fessing up and asking for his help like a mature person. Sherlock is angry Mary pursued a relationship with John knowing it would be based on lies. Sherlock is angry that he has to convince John to stay with someone who has lied to John and isn’t worthy of him — Sherlock hardly considers himself truly worthy of John, so of course Sherlock doesn’t approve of what Mary’s done, and of course Sherlock would rather John be in a happier relationship than this.

* During the 221B scene, Sherlock shows impatience toward everyone in this scene from time to time, but John is the only one he ever is the least bit gentle towards. Sherlock is business-like with Mary, and looks at John like his heart is breaking for him. Which it literally is.

* Sherlock sees that Mary has not apologized and does not appear to do anything wrong, so he has to shift the focus on to John’s faults in order to get John to think he can never do better than Mary anyway, and to get on Mary’s good side. (I talk about this in great detail in the M-theory entry.)

Then I’ll just quote this bit from the M-theory entry, too:

Sherlock knows that John chose Mary because she wasn’t like that, and kept choosing her as an alternative to someone like Sherlock: John would have never bothered with things like therapy if he didn’t want to behave differently, if he weren’t struggling, and John always tries to present himself as more normal than he really is. Sherlock has seen that John keeps choosing a domestic life even though he hates it, which John wouldn’t do unless he felt he was supposed to. John was unhappy at the beginning of this episode because married life wasn’t dangerous enough, and that’s exactly what Sherlock had expected to happen. Sherlock was the one who pointed out that John was a danger addict looking for a fix that he hadn’t got from his marriage.

Sherlock knows that this situation is John’s worst nightmare, not something he asked for or should have predicted. Of course it isn’t John’s fault: if Sherlock couldn’t tell Mary was an assassin, John couldn’t have. As far as Sherlock knows, Mycroft and the whole British government couldn’t tell Mary was an assassin.

And even if it were all some sixth sense for danger, Sherlock doesn’t think John deserves something like this. Sherlock thinks John is the “best” and “bravest and kindest and wisest” man he’s ever known. No one could ever convince Sherlock Holmes that John Watson deserves this kind of pain.

Saying all this is literally killing Sherlock.

Moving on:

* When Sherlock says Mary befriended Janine to get close to Magnussen, and Mary says, “You can talk,” Sherlock gives her a weird, eye-twitchy half-smile. It’s very similar to the I’m-going-to-enjoy-ending-you smiles he’ll shower upon Magnussen at Appledore. It is not fondness or sympathy; Sherlock’s fond and sympathetic smiles are absurdly warm. [Clip.]

* In the same clip, when Mary says, “You did see that,” Sherlock looks distinctly uncomfortable. He doesn’t express agreement, he simply lets her say it. If Sherlock genuinely sympathized with her, he’d nod sympathetically — something, anything to back her up. But he doesn’t, because he doesn’t sympathize. Mary continues, “And you married me. Because he’s right.” We get another shot of Sherlock looking even more uncomfortable. This is exactly what Sherlock needs John to believe, and it’s working that Mary is going along with it, but he doesn’t like blaming John. “It’s what you like,” Mary finishes. And Sherlock changes the topic, visibly struggling with the literal pain in his heart as he asks about what Mary wants from Magnussen.

* Sherlock explains what happened at Magnussen’s office in the most sympathetic light possible: Mary really did intentionally incapacitate him, but Sherlock chooses to refer to that as saving his life when we know that Mary could have just accepted Sherlock’s help. Notably, Sherlock leaves out the part where he offered his help, because that would make the story unsympathetic.

* The whole conversation Sherlock just states his story and never once looks like he feels sorry for Mary or likes her at all.

* Sherlock tells us over and over the reason he detests romance is that it’s destructive: people hurt each other, and we’ve seen him be awful to clients who have lied to their spouses. Why would anyone believe Sherlock is suddenly cool with that behavior when it’s taken to the level Mary has taken it?

Also, note that the episode title is a play on the ACD story "His Last Bow." The majority of the episode is actually a retelling of “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton,” so what elements of “His Last Bow” might be present here? Well, Holmes pretends to be on the side of a spy in order to get the evidence necessary to take him down, and chloroforms the spy in the process. That’s literally the entire story. In HLV, Sherlock pretends to be on Mary’s side so he can get the evidence necessary to take her down, and drugs her unconscious in the process. (I give all the evidence that Mary is Moriarty’s spy in M-theory.)

Then at the end, we get John asserting that Sherlock is the East Wind: Sherlock is the “terrifying force that lays waste to all in its path” and “seeks out the unworthy and plucks them from the earth.” Mary had better wrap up warm.

Hope that covers it. If we were supposed to believe Sherlock genuinely trusts Mary, we wouldn’t get all these hints that he, well, doesn’t trust her at all. And it makes a lot more sense that he wouldn’t trust her.

Johnlock and the idea that Sherlock is a sociopath

  (Sherlock Meta by Loudest Subtext In Television)

A lot of people have been getting irritated that John calls Sherlock a sociopath when he clearly isn’t, and that Sherlock refers to himself as a sociopath when he clearly isn’t.  But the reason “sociopath” gets repeated over and over is because it’s a BIG part of the misunderstanding that is currently keeping them from having a relationship.  It doesn’t matter that it’s not true, it matters that Sherlock says it.

Sherlock tells people he’s a sociopath to manage their expectations of him.

John tells himself Sherlock is a sociopath when he needs a reminder that Sherlock is never going to return his feelings.  (i.e. if John calls Sherlock a sociopath, that means he wants him badly at that moment.  Reread the blog with that in mind.)

A thread for John’s feelings, episode by episode across the series, below the cut.

John in A Study in Pink:  Holy hell this guy is thrilling and attractive.  Bit weird but I like it.  Rude, unsociable, that’s fine.  Someone kidnapped me, that was fun.  Sherlock doesn’t do girlfriends— wait could I actually have sex with this guy?  That would really be the jackpot.  Whoa, whoa, okay, nevermind.  He really doesn’t like that idea.

He just said he’s a sociopath and apparently has a drug problem.  And now he’s about to kill himself to prove he’s clever.  Wow this guy has problems.  *shoots the cabbie*  Whatever, so do I and he doesn’t judge me.  I don’t have to pretend to be normal around him.  He makes me feel alive and I’m not giving this up for anything.  Now he’s happy about someone named Moriarty?

I can’t tell Ella about any of this, I know it’s fucked up.  I just won’t go to therapy anymore. It wasn’t working and now I feel great anyway.

John in The Blind Banker:  Sherlock doesn’t like the idea of me having feelings for him so I’ll just date women so he doesn’t get the wrong idea.  This can’t end for any reason. I was at the end of my rope and I don’t know how to live a normal life.

He thinks I’m an idiot, so right: of course he wouldn’t be attracted to me, put it out of mind.  Okay, apparently Sherlock doesn’t even understand the concept of sex and dating.  Really?  He’s so strange.  Okay, it was never going to happen.

And my girlfriend just nearly got killed.  Oh well, I’m not going anywhere!  I really shouldn’t have a crush on this guy, that’s fucked up.

But I do.

John in The Great Game:  Apparently Moriarty is this insane genius that flirts with Sherlock and Sherlock is getting off on solving his crimes.  CHRIST, Sherlock doesn’t even care that all these people died?  I hope you’ll be very happy together Sherlock, Jesus.  So he’s gay for Moriarty?  Whatever, I’m apparently not at ALL what he’s looking for, and I’m not sure he’s what I’m looking for if he’s that heartless.  Yeah, fine, of course I’ll keep helping you with the case, I’m too pathetic to move out.

Now Moriarty’s strapped a bomb to me.  And now they’re flirting.  ”…or are you just happy to see me?” “Both.”  Both, Sherlock?  So he’s gay…?  Right…?  Wow, I’m actually willing to die for Sherlock.  Oh god, I’m in love with him, aren’t I?  I’m not sure he even cares.  Heeey, good thing no one thinks we’re gay, right Sherlock?  … Yeah, that’s what I expected.

I’m in love with Sherlock and he is not in the least attracted to me.  This is bad.  I’m going to throw myself at a million women.

John in A Scandal in Belgravia: Does Sherlock really need to walk around naked in a sheet?  I shouldn’t look.

Okay, I looked.  Ugh.  Why do I do this to myself?

I AM SO JEALOUS OF THIS NAKED WOMAN.  PUT SOME GODDAMN CLOTHES ON.  Now she’s stuck a syringe in him and beat him senseless.  Wow, apparently that’s the kind of shit he’s into: insane geniuses that try to hurt him.  Is he straight then?  Bi?  Why doesn’t he respond to her texts?  I don’t understand this at all.

Now my girlfriend is breaking up with me because she sees how pathetic I am: I’ll do anything for Sherlock.  And he’s chased all my last ones off.  What the hell am I supposed to do?  Sherlock isn’t attracted to me and I can’t have a girlfriend.  I’m picking Sherlock anyway, aren’t I?  God.

Is he mourning Irene?  So he can get like this.  For other people.  And I actually feel bad for him because I love him and care about him, god, I am pathetic.  Alright, I will fuck the first woman who’ll have me when I walk outside.  Oh wait, it’s Mycroft.  Oh wait, it’s IRENE FUCKING ADLER?  Tell him you’re alive, I hate you.  Okay, you know, I’m not actually gay Irene, Sherlock isn’t my only goddamn option, just because we live togeth—  Well.  She can actually tell.  How transparent am I?

AND SHERLOCK OVERHEARD IT.  Oh god.  This is what I’ve been trying to avoid.

Thank god he’s got a gun on this CIA guy.  And now he’s throwing him out the window a lot.  Phew, gives me time to think.  Okay, we can’t just pretend he didn’t overhear what he did.  We have to have that conversation.  ”She’s alive then.”  He’s not saying anything.  ”How are we feeling about that?”  Happy new year, John?  ”Do you think you’ll be seeing her again?”  No response.  …Ouch.  But I knew this.  I knew this.

And now Irene shows up in his bed in his clothes.  He wants to save her.  Of course, she drugs and beats him and he wants to help her.  And of course I’ll help because don’t I always?  He just did a deduction to impress her, ugh.  And now she’s kissed his cheek and threatened to beat him until he begs for mercy, pushed all the right buttons I bet.  Alright, just fuck her Sherlock, I’m out.

Apparently he unlocked her phone and hates her now?  So… heterosexual sociopath?  I guess?  Just a sociopath?  Not capable of a relationship is the important thing, get over him, Watson, he can’t love you back.

Irene’s dead?  Mycroft, Sherlock won’t care, he doesn’t feel that sort of thing.  You’re not so sure?  Well, whatever.  I’ll tell him she’s alive to be on the safe side.  Wait, Sherlock actually wants her phone?  And not as evidence or anything?  So he can feel those things?  Is he in love with Irene?  Is that what that means?

Does it matter?  He’s not in love with me.

John in The Hounds of Baskerville:  Sherlock is impossible and frustrating and I’m still hopelessly in love with him.  Ugh.  And now this gay innkeeper can tell, it’s that obvious to everyone.  I guess I should be thankful Sherlock never says anything when this happens.  It’s awkward but I can have some dignity about this.

Why does Sherlock have to look so cool with his stupid coat and cheekbones?  He does it on purpose, I swear.

And now Sherlock’s just told me I’m not even his friend.  God.  This shouldn’t hurt so much.  I know what he’s like.  This shouldn’t surprise me. Yeah I’ll still help with the case.  Flirting with Henry Knight’s therapist sounds good, any distraction from— and now she thinks I’m gay.  This is pointless, everyone can tell I’m in love with Sherlock, why do I even try?

He drugged my coffee — or thought he did, anyway — and scared me out of my fucking mind and I’m still choosing him over everything else.  Okay, I need to remember: this guy cannot love me back.  He cannot love me back.  Cannot love me back.

John in The Reichenbach Fall:  And now even the newspapers are implying Sherlock is my boyfriend.  Could this get any worse?  But I can’t give up what I have with Sherlock and lead a normal boring life.  I need to just accept he has no feelings and we’ll only ever be friends.  It shouldn’t frustrate me so much that he’s so emotionless.  I’ll just keep correcting him when it’s enough to put others off.

…God it IS frustrating though.  I can’t have him and a girlfriend.  I haven’t even bothered dating until I get over him but I can’t seem to get over him, I’m in love with him and if he could just love me back…

Okay, he doesn’t care if Mrs. Hudson dies?  Really?  ”YOU MACHINE!”

… he killed himself.  I don’t even.  I didn’t even think it would bother him.

I told myself to just accept how he was.  I told myself that.  And I went and lost my patience because I was frustrated he couldn’t love me back and he went and killed himself.  He still needed a friend, everyone needs friends, Moriarty was trying to ruin him and I made him think he didn’t have anyone.  Because I wanted more.

I can’t even talk about this to Ella.  I can’t even…  No point in telling his corpse I was in love with him.  That was the whole problem and he wouldn’t care.  But he was still human even if he wasn’t into relationships, or whatever he was.  And he mattered so much to me.  I can say that.

God I wish he weren’t dead.  I fucked up.  I fucked up so bad.

John during the hiatus:  I am so fucking depressed and full of guilt and I’m still in love with him.  I would do anything to have him back.  If I could have him back, this time I would accept he’s a sociopath and can’t return my feelings.  I would at least have him as a friend, I would at least feel alive again.

I can’t pine after a dead man forever.  Even if he were alive I shouldn’t be pining.  Get a girlfriend.  Okay, yes, Mary.  Alright, this is functional.  She’s nice.  She’s clever like Sherlock and funny like Sherlock and she loves me back.  This is what I’m supposed to want.  Yes life is boring, but my problem was that I never learned how to live a normal life before.  Living a normal life is what keeps me from falling in love with sociopaths.  That’s heartbreak I don’t need ever again.

John during Many Happy Returns:  I shouldn’t watch this video of Sherlock, it’s going to gut me.  Okay, I’m getting drunk and watching this video of Sherlock.  There he is: that’s my sociopath.  That’s my boy.  He’s awful and wonderful.  God I miss him.  God I wish he weren’t dead.  I wish he were alive and just as terrible and unsociable as before.  I could handle it now.  I’d give anything.  I wouldn’t want more of him.

John in The Empty Hearse:  It’s been two years and I’m still not over Sherlock.  I need to put this behind me.  Visit Baker Street one last time, then propose to Mary.  …And just stopping on the stairs and remembering our first case together, and then Irene, is enough to make me cry. Ugh.  It was never going to happen.  Never going to happen.  Okay.

MRS. HUDSON SHERLOCK WAS NOT MY BOYFRIEND, I AM NOT GAY, IT IS NOT UNTHINKABLE I WOULD MARRY A WOMAN.  God, why did I come here?

Okay, just propose.  Just propose and move on.  Mary, I—

Oh my fucking god.  He’s alive.  This cannot be happening.  I knew he was a sociopath, I fucking knew it, OF COURSE he would do this to me.  If I ever needed confirmation that he has NO FEELINGS WHATSOEVER—  I don’t care, I don’t care he’s alive, I’m never seeing him again.  Why did I ever feel ANYTHING for him?  What is WRONG with me?

I’m not shaving for Sherlock Holmes.  Shut up, Mary, I’m not seeing him again.  I’m marrying you.  Yup.  I love Mary, and she loves me back.  Getting married.  Getting the fuck over Sherlock.  That was the push I needed to be certain.  NO MORE FALLING IN LOVE WITH SOCIOPATHS.

God work is boring.  All I can think about is Sherlock.  Okay, I’m seeing him again.  I am pathetic, but I can’t stay away.  Aaargh.

And of course I get kidnapped and thrown in a bonfire.  That was maybe a bit exciting.  I don’t know.  No it wasn’t.  Shouldn’t be.  I need to find out why that happened, though.  So… I need to see Sherlock, right?  Now I’m getting sucked into a case.  I’m seriously addicted to him, to this.  I have issues.

…we’re about to die.  Are we really about to die?  Sherlock is a sociopath, he fakes insane shit like this.  He just wants me to say something nice.  We might actually be dying though and— I wanted him to not be dead, I wanted him back just like he is.  I told myself I’d accept he’s a sociopath this time around.  I wanted to see him one more time, and I got my miracle.  If I die now that’s fine.  Of course I forgive him.  (What the hell is wrong with me?)

…Of course it was a joke.  This is what I wanted.  It’s funny.  No, really, actually funny.  I have to admit it’s funny.  I’m messed up.

We didn’t die and I have him back and life won’t be boring anymore.  And I have Mary, and she actually likes Sherlock, and Sherlock isn’t chasing her off, so I can have a relationship and Sherlock at the same time.  This is all I could ever ask for, right?  This is the best I could hope for.

John in The Sign of Three:  Sherlock isn’t acting like a sociopath.  He’s changed a lot.  He still says thoughtless stuff but he’s bending over backward for me.  He’s planning my whole wedding in his spare time instead of doing cases.  Did something happen?  He seems to actually… care about me.  A lot.

Okay, no, don’t go thinking that way.  He is a sociopath.  Quit feeding your feelings for him, it broke your heart before and it’ll break it again.  Don’t ask more of Sherlock than he can give you.  And there’s Mary.  Mary, who loves you back and is NOT a sociopath.  That’s what you’re supposed to want.  That’s what’s healthy.

God he’s nice though.  Not acting all possessive, and he’s not pushing me away all the time like he did before he faked his death.  I’m his priority for some reason.  And now I’ve asked him to be my best man and he seems stunned to think I care about him.  He seems moved by this. I didn’t think that was possible.

If it’s at all possible…  Am I making a mistake marrying Mary?  Of course not.  No.  Sherlock can’t feel anything like that.  But uh, hey, Sherlock, you know there have been two people in my life that have turned it around, and one is Mary, and the other one is — a complete dickhead.  Right.  He just left while I was talking to him.  Sociopath.  Just.  Forget it.

I should not be this conflicted and glum on my stag night.  I need to know.  I really need to know.  No, it shouldn’t matter, I’m marrying Mary.  God, I don’t know.  More alcohol.  Yes.  Sherlock actually seems like a human being when he’s drunk.  It’s nice lying by him on the stairs.  Let’s drink more, yeah.  If I told him I still had feelings for him, would he…?  I’ll write his  name on this paper.  Maybe it’ll give me an opening.

Christ he’s attractive when he’s drunk.  Just funny and relaxed and no sharp edges.  He can’t be a sociopath, can he?  Something changed, didn’t it?  I’ve never felt this connected to anyone in my life.  Sherlock so help me god if you’re interested I will blow you right now, I’ve been in love with you forever.

Okay, yeah, wow: that whole night was a bad idea.  I’m going to marry Mary, what was I thinking?  That’s terrible.  And Sherlock wasn’t into me, he’s a sociopath and I was drunk and delusional.  Marriage, yes.  I’m certain Mrs. Hudson.

Sherlock, that guy was stealing identities from the obituaries to have one night of sexless connection with women because he was married.  That’s just how married men are.  That’s how good it feels to have a connection with someone, and how much it sucks to be married and bored all the time.

Now I’m married.  Okay.  Committed.  Now marks the start of my new healthy life that isn’t fucked up at all.  I will never fall in love with a sociopath again and my heart will never be broken because Mary loves me and I love her.  I will still have Sherlock to keep things from getting too boring, this is the best I could hope for.

Hey Major Sholto, with whom I had either a requited or unrequited gay thing with in the past.  Good to see you.

Sherlock’s best man speech ought to be something.  Here he goes.  …Oh.  Wow, jesus.  I’m not going to— okay, I’m crying.  What the fuck, Sherlock?  I didn’t know you care about me that much.  I won’t hug him, he wouldn’t like that.  Okay, I’m going to hug him.  Wow.  I can’t believe this.

Wait, what’s going on?  Oh no.  I can’t even follow this.  Okay, someone is going to die?  Well Sherlock would know.  Jesus christ why is he slapping himself?  ”It’s always you John Watson,” what the fuck does that mean?  Why am I standing?  ”What do I do?”  Tell me what to do Sherlock.  Okay, yes, save someone’s life.  Of course.  Of course that’s what he meant.  On standby, then.  Give me the word.

Okay!  Let me kiss you goodbye, Mary, and run off with Sherlock.

Everything worked out.  Phew.  Back to being married.  This is working out, even my wedding was exciting.  Stuff won’t be boring.

Looks like Sherlock maybe ended up with Janine?  Did he?  I’ve known he was straight since Irene, haven’t I? Just put it out of mind.  Dance with Mary.  Don’t think about dancing with Sherlock.  That didn’t mean anything.

And we’re having a child?!  I— wow.  Okay.  That’s it then.  I can’t kid myself anymore.  Mary.  Mary Mary Mary.  I can’t even think about Sherlock anymore.  Nope, won’t do it.  He is a straight sociopath, and Mary is going to be the mother of my child.  Moving on for sure this time.  Hahaha I dunno where those gay rumors came from!

John in His Last Vow:  I don’t like this.  Being married is boring, I haven’t seen Sherlock for a month, and I’m dreaming about him coming to save me from the boredom.  God I wish it had been Sherlock at the door.  Whatever, I’m going to go rough up some druggies.  NO MARY YOU CAN’T COME.  Ugh fine whatever.

Why the fuck didn’t Sherlock TALK to me if he was going to do drugs again?!

Yeah, go take a shower Sherlock.  No I won’t go in your bedroom.  Idiot, of course I’m going in your—

…Am I really seeing this?  He had sex?  That’s something he does?  He can do that.  Sherlock Holmes has sex.  With women.  Women.  This should not…  gut me like it does.  It is none of my business.  Oh my god oh my god oh my god.  Janine, right, I knew that was a thing.  Has nothing to do with me.  Nothing at all.  I am married.  I am going to be a father.  Sherlock is straight.

I can’t even think.  Why can’t I even think.  This shouldn’t matter to me.

She’s the only one who really knows him?  Okay, this isn’t just sex, this looks like a relationship.  My head is spinning.  Sherlock is talking and I can’t even hear him.  He can have a relationship?  With another human being?  A relationship and sex and everything?

With women.  God.  Get over it.  You’re going to be a father.  No Sherlock, I’ll text you if I’m available.

Who am I kidding, of course I’ll burglarize CAM tower.  IS HE REALLY PROPOSING?  Wait, no: he’s fake proposing.  What.  The.  Fuck.  Okay, no, I knew this: complete and utter sociopath.  Who does that?  Sherlock Holmes does that.

It was never going to happen.  Never, ever, ever going to happen.  Wife and child.

DON’T DIE SHERLOCK.  Okay, good, not dead.  And his first words waking up are Mary.  I knew he was straight.  I always knew that.  Haha Mary Sherlock has a crush on you.

HOW THE FUCK DID MARY TURN OUT TO BE A SOCIOPATH.  HOW.  WHY DID SHE HAVE TO BE LIKE THAT.  THIS IS WHAT I WAS TRYING TO GET AWAY FROM.  WHY AM I SO FUCKED UP?  WHY IS MY LIFE SO FUCKED UP?

This is unforgivable.  It has to be.  She shot Sherlock and then threatened to kill him if she had to right in front of me.  Sherlock is telling me to trust her, though.  I don’t know.

But she’s going to be the mother of my child.  And she loves me back.  Apparently I’m doomed to be in love with sociopaths.  I don’t know what to do.  If I read these files, apparently I won’t love Mary anymore and then what’s my option?  Pine after Sherlock while he has girlfriends, and not even like the mother of my child?

It’s been months and I still haven’t made a decision.  But it has to be Mary, right?  I’ve just been putting it off because I don’t like any of my options.  I still care about her.  Just get rid of the files so I’m not tempted to quit caring about her.  Just get it over with.

Now Sherlock just announced he’s a sociopath and shot Magnussen in the head right in front of me.  He was unarmed Sherlock.  I don’t even know what that means.  What can it mean when a straight sociopath wastes some guy to protect your wife?  Is he in love with Mary?  I don’t know.  I did say that the two of them should have gotten married.  He got along with her so well.  He forgave her for trying to kill him and threatening to kill him after the fact.  Irene beat and drugged him and he still had feelings for her.  It would explain a lot.

Now Sherlock is leaving forever and I don’t know how to feel about anything.  I am so empty and broken inside.  Everything is a goddamn mess.  I can’t possibly think of a thing to say, I’m hardly even here right now.

—

Want Sherlock’s side of things?

Johnlock: Sherlock’s feelings for John, episode by episode

 (Sherlock Meta by Loudest Subtext In Television)

Sherlock feels sentiment is destructive.  It ruins one’s ability to think, and he can’t bear to get attached to people because it hurts too much to lose them.  He also hates how people manipulate one another’s emotions; it disgusts him.  He can’t even begin to contemplate sex and relationships.

He gets lonely, though, so he wants someone around — but no one can ever stand Sherlock.  If they like him it’s usually hero worship and they always have expectations of him, or want things from him, and he’s never been able to be a normal person.  People get disappointed and leave.

Until John.  Sherlock gets attached to John and doesn’t like how it compromises his ability to think.  He is constantly obsessing over John leaving or dying.  But he can’t function without him when he tries to push him away, and making John feel bad makes Sherlock feel bad.

Here is the thread of Sherlock’s feelings for John, episode by episode, below the cut:

Sherlock in A Study in Pink:  Ex-army doctor with an alcoholic sister who does things when I ask — this could work.  He could potentially handle a lot more of my quirks than other people.  Better run him through the paces.  Wow, he’s still here.  Er, wait, is he just attracted to me?  Okay, NO John, I’m married to my work.  Don’t be weird about this, please.  Alright.  Seems good.  Cured the limp, that was easy.  He handled the drug habit well.  Oooh, time to play with the cabbie!  WHAT THE FUCK, WHO SHOT HIM?  WAS I RIGHT?  AAAARGH.  I can’t stand when people get something over on me!  FUCK YOU DEAD GUY, SAY HIS NAME.  Moriarty, thanks.

So I guess I can deduce that the guy who shot him was— oh.  Oh!  Ahaha.  Hahaha.  John.  Wow.  He shot a guy for me.  And he worked out where I was, damn!  This is amazing.  I’m so happy.  I have a friend and a new nemesis!  Let’s go eat Chinese food and I will be myself like I can’t be around other people!

Sherlock in The Blind Banker:  Hey Sebastian, I have a FRIEND now.  …Oh, a colleague?  Right.  Of course.  Fine John, whatever.  I’ll break into people’s flats by my damn self, I don’t need anyone.  I did this shit before you, John, you know.  You’re not like, you know, some conductor of light that my brain needs to make deductions.  That’d be… stupid.  You don’t complete me or anything.

… You’re going on a date?  We were doing a good job spending 24/7 together, what gives?  Why mess with a good thing?  Whatever, I’m going on your date too.

Damn I almost got John’s girlfriend killed.  It’s cool, I’ll save her and be really nice to her when I do it.  Phew.

Almost got John killed too.  It would have been my fault, because they were after me.  And he’s probably going to want to leave now, right?  That all… makes me feel bad inside.  Don’t obsess over it.  (Why am I obsessing over it.  He didn’t leave.  Stop.)

Sherlock in The Great Game:  I DON’T NEED ANYONE AND YOUR BLOG IS STUPID AND YOU’RE STUPID.  Wait, where are you going?  Oh god… John come back.  No, fine!  Stay with your girlfriend, I don’t care.  Caring is not an advantage.  Alone protects me.  I’M NOT STILL SAD ABOUT MY LOYAL, COMFORTING DOG THAT GOT PUT DOWN WHEN I WAS A CHILD, AND JOHN IS NOT LIKE THAT DOG IN ANY WAY.

KABOOM.  Moriarty!  Yes!  Puzzles!  This is great!  Glad you’re back, let’s go solve crimes John!  Man, I’m doing so good, aren’t I, John?  Yeah I think so, too.  I’m so fucking high off crime-solving right now you wouldn’t believe it.  Why did I ever do drugs?  Why don’t we just solve crimes together FOREVER?

Ohhh shit.  That old woman and a bunch of other people got blown up.  Not my fault.  No, not my fault.  I told her not to say anything else.  I can’t afford to feel bad about this right now, it won’t do any good and it could happen again.  Moriarty is seriously dangerous.

…John is really pissed at me.  Look, John, don’t make me out to be a hero or you’re going to be disappointed.  What was he expecting?  Man… is he really not even going to help with the case because I’m not sad enough, or whatever?

This is it, isn’t it.  He’s going to move out.  He’s going to move out because I’m not normal and I’m going to be alone and— okay, thank god.  He’s helping.  I need to… try to be better about this sort of thing or he won’t stick around.  I can do that.  I can try.

Hey John, nothing to see here, I’m just watching TV and I promise to… whatever you just asked, yeah go and see your girlfriend; guess she’s good for something after all.  Okay, now I can meet Moriarty alone and John won’t be in danger.  Great.  This is why I’m a super genius.

HE FUCKING KIDNAPPED JOHN.  OH MY GOD.  OH MY GOD.  Okay, god, just think.  Try to think.  Stay calm, get through this.

John just… offered to die for me… I don’t… even…

Thank god.  Moriarty left.  JOHN ARE YOU OKAY?  Oh my god I hate this.  This is what Mycroft has always warned me about.  And it’s my fault, it would have been ALL MY FAULT if something happened.  He’s going to want to leave now, isn’t he?  Why wouldn’t he?  Someone is always kidnapping him.

He’s staying, for some reason. I… Alright.  Weird decision for someone who doesn’t even consider himself my friend, but I’m not going to argue.  Thank god I’ve got his hero worship obsession going for me.  Just need to keep that to manageable levels.

I need to not be so attached to John.  For both our sakes.  Then I’ll be able to think clearly, and people won’t use him against me, and he’ll never be murdered or leave EVER.

Sherlock in A Scandal in Belgravia:  John really romanticizes the cases.  I don’t get why people embellish things.  What do they get out of it?  It’s so stupid.  Why pretend things are other than what they are?  It’s asking for disappointment.  Don’t make it so easy for me to disappoint you, John.

John is a big help with all these boring cases I can’t be bothered with.  I don’t even have to get dressed sometimes.  But now the Queen is hassling me or something.  I guess you can’t win ‘em all.  I’m still not putting on pants.

Oh hey John.  Yes it would be funny to steal an ashtray.  I’ll steal one for you, you’ll like that.  Dominatrix?  Boring.  Sex makes people so boring, they act like idiots.  I don’t even acknowledge my sexual urges, I don’t understand why other people can’t control themselves.  Not taking the case.

Alright fine, I’ll take it, Mycroft, god.  I’ll get to wear a disguise, that’ll be fun.

Punch me, John.  He’ll do it if I punch him first.  Yup:  super genius.  I’ll fake my way in.  That was easy.  Go look around John, you’re so helpful.  Remember the plan, set a fire, etc!  We’re like spies!

[Note: if you watch this episode with a heteronormative mindset, then you assume Sherlock would naturally be into Irene and that’s what you see.  But knowing what we know from TSoT and HLV, Sherlock is gay, never had sex with Irene, and didn’t have sex with Janine.  That’s always been kind of obvious in ASiB, imo: he actually detests Irene, and that’s how I’ve read the episode for some time.

Rewatch the episode after reading this if you need to.  The camera makes very clear that it was what John said at the power station that stunned Sherlock, and that he does the big deduction to impress John, not Irene.  You actually have to disbelieve everything Sherlock actually says in order to think he’s into Irene.  Hetero-baiting, everyone.  Here comes Irene.]

WHOA NAKED WOMAN.  What the hell is she doing?  I have absolutely NO idea what she could mean by this.  She’s trying to distract me, but from what?  Nothing to go on.  And she knows I’m in disguise.  Shit.  I have no backup plan.  She could do anything and I have nothing to go on.  I can’t afford to get like this.  Keep her talking.  JOHN.  Okay, stare at John.  Deduce John.  That’s comforting.  I’ve still got it.  Irene?  Nothing.

I need to watch her like a hawk.  She’s up to something.  What is she talking about the hiker for?  What the fuck is going on?  WHY IS JOHN SITTING BY HER?  WHY IS SHE FLIRTING WITH JOHN?  “ASLDKJS:LFJSF— The position of the car” god what is wrong with me?  Okay, concentrate.  GO FORTH AND EXECUTE OUR AWESOME PLAN JOHN.

I’ll deduce to pass the time.  You bore the shit out of me, Irene, why don’t you try thinking for once.  Thanks for playing along.  FIRE ALARM, there we go.  Great job, John.  We are the dream team!  Deducing the hell out of this safe code now.

THEY’RE GOING TO SHOOT JOHN IN THE HEAD, WHY DOES THIS ALWAYS HAPPEN?  Is he seriously going to die because I couldn’t think clearly?  Why does this keep happening?!  …Ohhhh thank god, thank god.  Duh.  It’s her measurements.  That’s the sort of dumb sex shit she would use.  You’re flattered, Irene?  “Don’t be.”  It was obvious.  Boring.

Let’s get out of here John, I have her phone, I just need the code.  Wanna tell me, Irene?  Well, it was worth a try asking.  I don’t care if you die, peace out.  Why did she just caress— DAMN IT.  I knew I had to watch her.  She is fucking crazy.  She just drugged and whipped me.  AND SHE THINKS SHE BEAT ME?  NO ONE BEATS ME.  THIS ISN’T OVER.  John I—  “John!”

What the fuck is wrong with her!  She was in my fucking room!  She is crazy!  And she’s clearly much more clever than I thought!  I don’t know what she’s going to do!  I took my attention off her for a second and then this!  I DON’T NEED YOU JOHN I DON’T NEED ANYONE.  This is why sex is stupid.  She just uses it to manipulate people.  I can’t imagine how much worse things would have gone if I had fallen for any of her shit.

Why is this crazy woman texting me now?  What’s her game?  Geez, she’s really blowing up my phone.  What does she want from me?  I’m not going to talk about this because I hate admitting I don’t understand something.  I’ll figure it out soon, I’m sure.  Oh, she has something BIG on that phone, doesn’t she Mycroft?  Oh, I’m to stay out of it, Mycroft?  Now I’m all OVER this.

I fucking hate Christmas.  John is seeing Harry and he has all his stupid girlfriends all the time now.  I can’t even think well when he’s not here.  I shouldn’t need him around so much.  Ugh, Molly is so obviously in love, let’s read the tag, it’s — me?

Wait, what the hell?  Why would anyone be in love with me?  I don’t even have friends.  Wow, now John thinks I’m a dick too.  I’m sorry Molly.  And there’s Irene texting again.  Have you really been counting all my texts, John?  You just love when I don’t know stuff, don’t you?  Oh, this gift is her phone.  She’s probably dead.  Yeah, she’s dead.  Well, I didn’t want that to happen.

Should I have protected her?  John hates it when people die because of me.  You ever think it’s weird we don’t care about people, Mycroft?  Like maybe we should care?  Nah, you’re right Mycroft.  We shouldn’t care about people.  I shouldn’t be so attached to John.  He’s not even my friend, according to him, so.  Going to spend Christmas night in my room instead of with John, NOT CARING like a BOSS.

All these feelings, though.  Going to compose sad music.  Helps me think.  “What are you thinking about?”  QUICK CHANGE THE SUBJECT TO A CASE.  The Work, The Work is everything.  It is all I need.  I still want to know what’s going on with this phone, Mycroft doesn’t want me involved with whatever this is.

Where’s John going?  I should really quit following him everywhere but he could get kidnapped at any time.  Nope, not gonna— WHO IS KIDNAPPING HIM THIS FUCKING TIME?  That’s not one of Mycroft’s girls.

John thinks I’m heartbroken over Irene?  Irene is alive?  Okay, yeah, let him keep thinking that then, better than thinking I’m a dick.  Man he’s being really… protective of me.  That’s going to get you killed one day, John.  Irene thinks we’re a couple?  What?  Right, John’s not gay.  What does Irene even mean by that?  Molly is one thing, but, John wouldn’t…  Does John want some kind of…?

Flee.  Brain is broken.  Can’t… think…

… Mrs. Hudson!  I am so sick of this shit.  I am so sick of people using the people I care about against me.  FUCK YOUR FACE CIA GUY, I WILL END YOU.  John go take care of Mrs. Hudson, I don’t want you to see this, you won’t like me.  OUT THE WINDOW.  OUT THE WINDOW.  OUT THE WINDOW.  I really don’t handle sentiment well, god.

John, I don’t know why Irene said we were a couple and I’m not going to discuss it.  I’ve never even considered something like that.  You’re so straight with all your girlfriends, and I don’t do sentiment because I throw people out of windows, and we’re both safe.  You’re not going to have any expectations of me, and I’m not going to disappoint you, and this is working as it is.  I’m going to focus on this case.

Now this games-playing crazy woman is in my bed.  Well shit, I have to help her or John will think I’m heartless, and I still need to know what’s on this phone to figure out what Mycroft doesn’t want me getting involved in.

Well, I have to admit she really turned this fake phone trick back on me.  “You’re rather good.”  Wait, why is John so pissy now?  Baby names what?  Okay, a deduction will cheer him up.

Well, she just kissed me on the cheek, that’s annoying, but:  DEDUCTION!  John?  Yes, John loved that.  Didn’t miss a beat even with this idiot trying to distract me.  Okay, I have to keep explaining, they don’t get it.  John loves this.  Please don’t feel obliged to compliment me, Irene, John does it all the time and I don’t care what you think.

Okay, she’s trying to be seductive, what is she up to now?  Until I begged for mercy twice?  Am I supposed to like that?  What is it like in your funny little brain?  What’s about to happen?  Syringe again?  Knife?   What?  WHAT?  John can you check those flight schedules, I can’t take my eyes off this crazy woman or god knows what will happen.

Now that I’m deducing I literally forget Irene exists and turn my back on her.  Okay, John, listen up, this is what I’m thinking:  “Coventry.”  Wait, what the hell?  “Where’s John?”  Hours ago?  But I was just talking to him.  Why does he do that?  Who am I supposed to talk to?  Why did he leave me alone with a violent crazy woman?

Oh fine, I’ll talk to her.  It worked okay before.  Can’t be any worse than the skull, anyway.  She’ll probably call me clever.  Okay, this is just the inklings, but…

— Have I ever had anyone, what does that have to do with—?  Oh.  I see. Officially worse than the skull, then.  How am I supposed to think when she’s always trying to manipulate me and distract me?  Why does she even do this?  I swear.  You try to help someone.

Why is she touching me?  Okay, that’s a bit much.  She couldn’t possibly…?  Pupils… Oh wow, that’s pathetic.  How does one even pretend at this, much less mean it?  I guess you just sort of…  That actually worked.  Pulse… yeah, that’s really what this is about.  She’s in love with me.  Well.  That’s dull.  ‘If it were the end of the world,’ really Irene?  Isn’t that romantic.  It’s Mrs. Hudson, not the apocalypse.  How do you people even think of these comparisons?  What do you get out of them?  Am I supposed to be enticed by this?

Thank god Mycroft is getting me out of here, this couldn’t get more boring.  Well, she was disappointing in the end.  It’s actually better deducing to myself aloud in this car.  No one interrupts me and I’ve figured it all out.

Hello Mycroft.  Mm-hm, very nice airplane of corpses.  Clever.  What?  It won’t fly why?  Well, you probably shouldn’t hire idiots that want to impress other idiots like Irene Adler, why are you telling me— Wait, you’re talking about me?  I don’t care about impressing Irene.  (I’ll never admit I was trying to impress John or help Irene because I’m trying to be nicer or that I got involved with the case because you told me to stay away from it.)  Mycroft, that’s INSULTING, you can’t honestly think—

Oh, hello Irene.  Right.  Right.  Stupid. So stupid of me.  Of course.  I knew she was planning something.

Okay, I knew this.  I’ve told myself over and over to not care about people, it makes me screw up cases, and now here I am.  And both Irene and Moriarty know John is my pressure point.  I can’t afford to have pressure points.

I can’t believe I allowed myself to get played by a sentimental idiot.  God, Mycroft, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to screw you over.  Oh, aren’t you smug Irene.  You got lucky.  I wasn’t all there.

Might still be time to figure this out, set things right.  Come on, come on.

Oh, Moriarty calls me The Virgin, does he?  Who cares.  You people and your warped priorities, you—

Oh.  OH.

Oh, Irene.  I know what you think I would never guess.  You think because I don’t respond like you expect, I don’t understand how people work.  But I do:  I read you like a book.  Yeah, act like you don’t care: all your emotions are faked, you sicken me.  There, you see?  I just touched you again and look at you.  SHER-locked, bam!  Nailed it.  No, I don’t care that you love me, you manipulative moron, you just made me look like an idiot in front of my brother!  I helped you and this is what you did even though you were in love with me!  Sentiment is a chemical defect found in the losing side, you’re a loser, no I won’t have dinner with you, and yes you can die for all I care. People like you are everything that’s wrong in this world.

I wish she’d quit crying.  That’s rather… You know what, I’ll just leave.  That’s easy.

Later:

…maybe I was a bit harsh.

She was going to die, what was she supposed to do?  So few people like me, too… am I really going to let her die because she was in love with me?  John wouldn’t like that I threw her to wolves.  John wouldn’t like if she turns up dead.  Can’t afford to have him think I’m heartless and leave; then Irene really would have beaten me.  He’s going out of town and I haven’t been to Pakistan in a while.  I could wear a costume.  And get a big sword!  Like a pirate!

That’s sorted then.

Yup: nailed it.  Alright bye Irene — no sex, sorry.

Hey John, yes, what about Irene?  (Did that get back to Mycroft?  Had to make it look like she was dead but I was hoping… Shit, she didn’t die later did she?)  Witness protection program?  FUCK YES.  GIVE ME THAT PHONE.  BYE.  You don’t own me Irene Adler!  BEST AND LONGEST CASE I EVER SOLVED.  IN THE DRAWER, I BEAT THE WOMAN.  SUPER GENIUS FOREVER.  Wow I really have a lot of phones from cases.  Hm.

Sherlock in The Hounds of Baskerville:  I’m so hard-up for a case that I will take this just because this guy said a funny word.  Help me play this Beware the Hound guy, John.  Good job.  Time to check out Baskerville.  I’ll be Mycroft Holmes and you be Captain John Watson.  Good job.  Really… really good job.  Damn, I feel funny.

John is indispensable now.  To the work.  Indispensable to the work.  That’s okay, right?  Just making use of my resources.

Alright Henry, let’s go see this “hound,” where’s it supposed to — JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.  I CANNOT POSSIBLY— WHERE DID JOHN GO?  IF JOHN WERE HERE I COULD THINK.  This is not real this is not real this is not real.  WAIT SHIT JOHN’S DEAD ISN’T HE?  IT FINALLY HAPPENED.  No, god, it’s not real, I didn’t see anything.

What is wrong with my brain?  Why do I feel like this?  Okay okay okay, time to, just, drink, calm down.  I cannot think.  I cannot afford to get like this.  I seriously saw a fucking hound, I’m losing it, this is what happens with sentiment: people get irrational.  And now I’m actually afraid — John don’t you see, I’ve always been able to keep myself distant, and now— THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH ME.  Deduce deduce deduce!  CALM MYSELF WITH LOGIC.  LEAVE ME ALONE.  I DON’T HAVE FRIENDS.  I had this sentiment garbage under control until YOU showed up.

…Now he left.  I was supposed to keep him from leaving, wasn’t I?  Wait, no, alone protects me.  I don’t know.  Need him for the work.  Apologize.  How?  John likes women.  Throw a woman at him.  Interview Henry Knight’s therapist, John.

John’s still pissed.  Heeey so UMQRA?  No?  Did you get laid?  I’m sorry you didn’t get laid.  God, fine:  JOHN YOU’RE MY ONLY FRIEND, YOU ARE AMAZING, YOU ARE FANTASTIC, YOU ARE MY CONDUCTOR OF LIGHT.  That’s a good clue John, thank you.  Have some drugged apology coffee.  We’re good?  We’re good.

Okay, let’s break into Baskerville.  I have to make you think you’re crazy.  Well, that worked.  But shit, it wasn’t the sugar?  EVERYONE GTFO, MIND PALACE TIME.

I deduced everything!  Let’s go the moor.  Henry, I’m feeling really sympathetic to you right now, please don’t blow your brains out: try to remember what happened so you can get peace with it.  OH JESUS CHRIST IS THAT MORIARTY?  I CAN’T THINK RIGHT NOW, DON’T KILL JOHN.  Right, right, that’s Frankland.  And he got blown up.  Case closed, that was fantastic.

Oh.  Right.  Sorry John.  And sorry about the coffee.  I’ll uh… try to be better.  Just don’t leave.  Please.

The Reichenbach Fall:  Moriarty is going to use John against me again.  Caring about him won’t help him, I have to think.  John, Mycroft and I have this plan where Moriarty ruins me: PLEASE DON’T BELIEVE IT but also believe it.  Wow, I wasn’t expecting Moriarty to pretend to be someone else entirely.  SO ANGRY RIGHT NOW.

What do I do?

Okay, fake my own death probably.  Got that worked out with Mycroft.  Have to get John away, that’s a given: if I meet Moriarty with John, he’ll just try to kill John.  John would never let me meet Moriarty alone, though.  So… He’ll believe I don’t care about Mrs. Hudson, he always thinks I’m heartless.  “Friends protect people.”  John, I’m the whole reason you’re in danger.

Wait, Moriarty has snipers trained on people?  And he just blew his brains out?  That leaves Lazarus then.  John needs to see this.  Wow, I’m telling him I’m a fake and he still believes in me.  That’s…

Well, here goes.

Nailed it.  Death faked.  Time to watch my own funeral.

…Wow, John, that’s really touching.  You really don’t want me to be dead?  You’re so loyal.  Maybe I shouldn’t have worried so much about you leaving.  Maybe it would have been okay to care more.  I guess people would have still tried to kill you, but they did that when I didn’t let myself care anyway.

Stay right there, I’m going to take out Moriarty’s whole network so we can be together again.

Friends are great.  John was right that friends protect people.  If it weren’t for Molly and everyone else who helped I probably would have had to really kill myself.

Sherlock in The Empty Hearse:   That’s Serbia sorted out.  Terrorism what, Mycroft?  When can I see John?  Do I look nice?  I need my coat, John thinks I look cool in it.  John’s going to be so happy, he wanted me to not be dead, and I’m gonna be like, “Not dead!”  Haha.  Then we’re going to solve crimes together.  Whatever Mycroft, you didn’t hear him at my grave and you don’t know shit about having friends.  I’m cooler than you, “blud.”  I’m an international gangster genius and you work at a desk, fattie.

Restaurant?  Okay.  Here I am.

Oh jesus christ there’s John.  Suddenly nervous.  What to do what to do what to do?  Disguise.  Hide everything.  I’m brilliant.  CROISSANT CROISSANT.  Seriously John?  Am I that good or are you that bad?  Okay is he proposing to this woman?  HEY STOP IT’S ME.  Oh… shit.  He’s super upset.  I feel terrible.  Apologize, apologize.  I don’t know what I’m doing.  God, that wasn’t funny, why did I say that?  …Then why did I say that too?  OUCH JOHN WHAT THE HELL.

Okay, I’ll tell him how I did it and he’ll tell me I’m clever and we’ll be back to norm— OW.

Alright, third time’s the charm.  John is a danger slut, let’s try it this way:  COUNTER PROPOSAL, ME AND YOU AGAINST THE REST OF THE WORLD—

My fucking face.  Christ.  He hates me.  I did not foresee this.  If this Mary woman will really talk John around, then… fine.

I still have other friends.  I need to go say hi to them.  Hey y’all.

You know what Mycroft, not being able to handle a broken heart is a sign of weakness.  Friends are good.  I have people that like me even though I’m different.  It’s fine, I’m fine.  I’m handling this broken heart like a champ.

So… cases.  Right.  Let’s do that.  So lonely.  Molly might like solving crimes.  She’d definitely try it anyway; she’s obsessed with me, like John was.  She might work out.

This skeleton, huh?  Better… deduce…  Why does John hate me?  In the past he criticized me for for being a smart arse, and a show-off, and for being jealous and possessive.  I should try not to be those things. If he ever even speaks to me again.  It was pretty awful of me to fake my death, wasn’t it?  This isn’t the same with Molly.  Why’d I go through all this trouble if I can’t have John back?  God I’m lonely.  Big empty mind palace…

Wanna hang out Molly?  No?  Okay, it’s cool.  Thanks so much.  I mean that.  Sorry I’m inadvertantly jerking you around when I’m not into you, I didn’t really mean to.  I truly hope you’ll be happy with Tom.

WHO THE FUCK IS KIDNAPPING JOHN NOW?  He’s not even my friend anymore and he’s— thank god, we saved him.  It’s really for the best if I’m not in his life anymore.  He was kidnapped or threatened by bad guys in four out of six previous episodes.  He’s better off with Mary.

He seriously almost died.  Because of me.  The moment I come back, and… God I’m crying a lot lately.

MOM, DAD, GTFO, JOHN IS HERE.  Heeey John god I’m sorry I don’t know what to say, there’s nothing I can say, I’m such a piece of shit.  Figures that I sort this case out the minute you’re here, though.  Let’s go find a bomb.  No, don’t call the police.  I need to talk to you alone and I’m not waiting for them in public and heading down in a group, I already called them, come on.

The bomb should be here but it isn’t.  Oh it’s this way.  And there’s the bomb.  Wow.  And now it’s counting down.  Oh fuck.  I’ve done it again, haven’t I?  JOHN DO YOU NOT GET THAT I FUCK UP SOMETIMES?  I DON’T KNOW WHY THOSE PEOPLE KIDNAPPED YOU AND I DON’T KNOW HOW TO STOP IT FROM HAPPENING AGAIN AND I DON’T KNOW HOW TO DIFFUSE A BOMB.  We’re going to die and I’m sorry, I’m just continually ruining your life, and— fine, mind palace, I guess, I— Oh.

I’ll just… switch this off.  And apologize for what this almost was, and the bonfire, and four of six previous episodes, and just generally hurting him constantly, while it’s still fresh.  I feel so guilty and it’s killing me.  John, I’m so terribly sorry.  You could have a safe future with Mary and I almost ruined it twice now.  (Not with me.  God why is that so painful?)  He forgives me?  HOW can he actually forgive me?  I can’t…

HAHAHA jokes jokes.  It was a joke.  LOL, gotcha.  (Oh thank god.)

John is getting married.  That’s for the best.  I’m lucky he even wants to be around me.  I won’t be jealous, and I’m lucky his wife doesn’t hate me for all the stuff that’s happened, and she’s not nearly as boring as the people he dated before.  I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself anymore but he’s… around.  And I have to keep myself… around or he’ll be super depressed again.

Sherlock in The Sign of Three:  I’m John’s best friend?  WHAT?

Brain is broken.

Okay.  Wow.  Best man.  Gotta write this speech.  Stupid, romantic thing, wedding speeches.  Ugh.  So.  How do I feel about John?  How do people feel about other people?  I don’t know.  I guess he’s brave and can save people’s lives and is pretty much the best person I’ve ever met in the world and the only one I think about constantly or ever want to hang out with.  My reason for living and breathing and the only person I’d die for, as it were.  Tedious.  He’s also really hot, but I don’t know why.  I’ll do some research on beauty, see if I can work that in.  People like beauty, or whatever.

Fuck, I don’t know how to write these things.

Let’s just go with: I’m pretty much the worst person in the world and John inexplicably puts up with me, and the only reason I’m not a worse piece of shit is because I try to be better for him.  It’s all true, it’s not embellished drivel.

That’ll have to do.

I’ll just plan John’s whole wedding.  Gives me something to do.  Cases aren’t any fun without John, so…  Look into everyone who responds to Mary’s tweets and how quickly.  Figure out everyone who hates Mary.  Intimidation.  Compose a waltz for violin.  Record it and play it and practice the dance so it’s perfect.  Teach John to dance.  Typical best man duties, I’m sure.

I should YouTube how to fold serviettes.

His stag night has to be perfect.  We’ll do a pub crawl on every street we found a corpse, John likes corpses.  And I’ll make sure he doesn’t get too drunk or that won’t be fun — Molly can help with that.  And I guess I have time to program and license an iPhone app to track all this, it’s not like I’ve got anything else on.

Who is this Major Sholto guy and why is he so important to John?  Why has he never mentioned him?  Don’t say anything, John doesn’t like when I’m jealous.  Why am I jealous?

Stag night time!  Going perfectly.  Man, I— HEY FUCK YOU I KNOW ASH.  I WILL DESTROY YOU.  God I’m tired.  I had an international reputation, didn’t I?  For… crime or something?  Hey Hudders.  Haha.  Okay more drinking.  He just touched my leg.  Why does that make me think of sex?  Oh well.  Is John pretty?  No, I just have sexual urges around him because he looks like my dad and he has perfect ratios.  I looked this up already.  Dull.  But if I had to say?  God, I don’t know.  I don’t even know who Madonna is.

This case, man.  It seems really important.  Why am I crying?  Cool: not crying now.  Sleepy.  NO, I’ll find your dog.  Look for clues, I’m supposed to know this stuff.

Well that was a waste of a night, I’m going to look into that case again now that I’m sober.  Well, after I look up Major Sholto online.  THERE’S JOHN, QUICK, CHANGE TABS.  What do you ladies like in a man?  Romance is so incomprehensible.  Do any of you have a secret you’ve ever told anyone?  Not you, John.  And there they all go.  Why would a guy steal identities from the obituaries to have a single night of conversation and not call them back?

He’s a married man and that’s just how it is?  I guess John would know.

Wedding time!  Now time for my speech.  I don’t understand why these people are crying.  Whatever, moving on.  Let’s talk about the stag night.  Great.  Now let’s toast this—

Why do I feel like something terrible is about to happen?  It’s about to be too late for something, but what?  I’ve just dropped my champagne.  What is…?

… Okay, in the space of fifteen minutes I’ve not only solved a murder, but also inexplicably realized John was once gay for me and lied about it since Irene at least. He possibly wanted to blow me on his stag night, and upon further reflection I’m not into women or anyone else but John really, and I would have liked that very much.  Except I never thought about this until now, I didn’t even think I was best friend material, and I thought romance was destructive and would carry expectations, but John has always accepted me and it would have been the same as always except with sex.

And I can’t even kill myself because that would destroy John.  Okay.  I’ll just… hey, on the bright side Sholto’s right:  something’s going to kill me one day.  I’ll embrace it when it happens.  Until then… John said nothing will change.  There’ll be cases.  The work.

Yeah Janine, I’m pretty gay.

The wedding must go on.  Nailed the violin solo.  Hey guys, I’ve never made a vow before and I’ll never make one again because John Watson is the only person in the world for me and I was too stupid to see it until it was too late.  So!  Hey John, and Mary.  I’ll be there for you always, and also your kid.

…

He can’t do cases when he has a kid around.  Alone forever.

Sherlock in His Last Vow:  I can’t even look at his chair.  He’s off having all kinds of sex with Mary.  This is killing me.  Cases, take a case.  Magnussen.  Ugh, he sounds reprehensible, blackmailing people who are different.  Research research research.  How long can I string Janine along without having sex with her?  Let’s find out.  This case is also a fantastic excuse to do drugs; I haven’t even seen John in a month.  I’ll be fine, I won’t OD or anything.

Well that went horribly.  How unlucky is it that John turned up?  I knew he couldn’t handle married life.

Yeah this is my GIRLFRIEND John.  (Are you jealous?  Are you missing our alternative lifestyle?)  Anyway Magnussen.  There he is.  Yeah, see, I told you he was terrible, not really shocking he pissed in the fireplace.  Let’s burglarize something together for old time’s sake, you seem like you need the adrenaline fix.

Fake proposal time.  Nailed it.  I’m not going to marry her John, obviously.

Whoa, crime.  Whoa, Mary!  Mary would never shoot me.

Wow.  Mary shot me.  And now I see Sirius and and James and Lily Potter!  Wait, I mean Molly and Anderson and Mycroft.  They’ll get me through this.  I am FREAKING OUT.  Redbeard, I’m gonna die too, it sucks doesn’t it?  Jesus Christ Moriarty is scary.  He says it won’t be so bad dying though.  I’ve been waiting for something to take me out anyway, so… finally.

WAIT JOHN WATSON IS IN DANGER?! RIGHT, MARY IS EVIL OR SOMETHING.

Alive.  Nailed it.

I will now literally bleed my heart out while I track Mary down, show John what’s up, and push them back together.  Because that’s still the mother of his child and I made a vow, and I am selfless as fuck.  John, you are abnormally attracted to dangerous people and situations.  Like me, even though you don’t know I know that.  And Mary.  Don’t tell me I should have married her John, god, you don’t know the half of it.  We can’t all be married.

I will literally go into cardiac arrest as I tell you to trust her, John.  If I die now, that’s fine.  Turns out Mary can provide you an alternative lifestyle too, if you want.  However you manage that with a kid.  I think you’re kind of doomed to not be safe with anyone, and you wouldn’t be happy safe, so.

Welp.  Not dead.  Harder to die for John than expected.  Gives me time to take Magnussen out so John can have some kind of life, though.  If I invite Mary and John over for Christmas they’ll make up.  Yup: super genius.  Now for the ole Christmas drug-n-steal.  Works every time.

Here’s my brother’s laptop, Magnussen.  Give me everything in your vaults on Mary.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh fuck.

Magnussen’s humiliating John, and it’s my fault, and I can’t even do anything about it.  Except blow Magnussen’s goddamn brains out, Merry Christmas.  I was never cut out for sentiment anyway.  Sociopath to the end.  That’s me.

Mary’s safe, John.

Mycroft is sending me off to die.  That’s what I wanted anyway.  So.  John, I’ll probably never see you again but…  God, why even say it?  It’ll torture him.  Leave him happy, with Mary, or there was no point to any of this.  Haha bye.  Ugh.

Moriarty what?

—

Want John’s side of things?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

I am so ready for Harry Watson

 (Sherlock Meta by Loudest Subtext in Television)

Anonymous said: Do you think Harry Watson's ever going to appear on the show? I sorta kinda desperately want her to be the Sassy Gay Friend and run around telling John and Sherlock what stupid bitches they've been.

Loudest Subtext in Television:

LOL, I am so ready for Harry Watson. I REALLY want more backstory about John because all we have is Sholto, which is still left so vague. We know nothing about John’s childhood or parents or Harry. We got a decent amount of Sherlock backstory this series so I’m guessing we’re going to get more of John’s backstory next series.

I want Harry to read Mary to filth.

I want to see what Harry’s like when she’s drunk and when she’s sober. I want to know all about Harry’s teenage years and how she came out and how she handled it and how their parents handled it. I want to know if their parents were accepting or not. If they weren’t, it could explain John’s secretiveness about his sexuality to some extent… but then, he’s not close to his parents if they’re still alive — they weren’t at the wedding — so if they weren’t accepting, it would have had to have affected him pretty deeply for him to still care. But it absolutely could have! That wouldn’t be very unusual, really! People cut their parents out of their life all the time and still feel compelled to conform to what their parents wanted them to be.

I mean, the writers chose to give John a queer sister for a reason, right? There’s some reason for her drinking problem, and some reason John and Harry aren’t close to their parents. Is it because their parents rejected Harry when she came out?

Does John have some strained, tenuous relationship with them he hopes to keep intact by maintaining a heterosexual lifestyle? That would actually be pretty common for a bisexual person. My mom is weird about bisexual people, so I figured I would avoid the drama and just tell her if I ever ended up in a serious same sex relationship… but then I married into a heterosexual relationship, so it’s never come up. It can be difficult for gay or straight people to understand, but you just don’t think to yourself, hey, I’m going to go start a needless argument with my parents and come out even though I don’t have a pressing reason at the moment. You think you’ll do it when you have a same-sex partner and it matters. There’s also the common reaction parents have where they’ll tell you that you don’t know what you’re talking about — especially when you’re younger — so you wait to have the same sex partner as proof. Then once you’re older, it just gets weird to bring it up for no reason. Everyone else knew when I was 14 and I didn’t hide it at all otherwise, and I never felt ashamed of it, but parents are a sticking point for people. My mom would get over it, but if John knew his parents wouldn’t, that’d be all the more reason to sweep it under the rug until there was a pressing reason to bring it up.

Or has John seen that Harry’s life has gone poorly, perhaps in part to her being openly queer? Was she targeted for bullying or something? When Harry goes on her drinking binges and John has to clean up after her, does she cry a lot about queer-related stuff? Does she present as very obviously queer and get shit for it? Have shitty things happened to her when she goes out with girlfriends? Society, on average, tends to be a bit more accepting of queer women than queer men, so does John see that and think it’s best to just keep it on the down low until/unless he gets a boyfriend? Again, that’s a very common thing for pan- and bisexual people to do. We can adopt heterosexual privilege to avoid trouble, and it generally doesn’t cause us the same inner turmoil as it would a gay person, so it’s sometimes paradoxically the best decision for one’s well-being. Even gay people have to do this sometimes. John may feel he’s just avoiding needless trouble by presenting himself as heterosexual. I think if Sherlock made it clear he was interested John wouldn’t hide it anymore, but until then, John doesn’t have much to gain by being openly bisexual.

I also want to know if Harry is older or younger than John. I’ve always assumed she was older, but do we ever have that confirmed? It would have an impression on John if she were older and he had to watch her struggle with her sexuality. He would have reason to embrace heterosexual urges and deny homosexual ones. That could also be the case if she were younger, but it may be more dramatic if he had seen that drama before he dealt with puberty himself.

I also wonder who they’ll cast as Harry.

It would make sense that we don’t see John’s queer sister until the show is ready to take on John’s orientation more in-depth. Aaargh, I can’t wait.

About what Sherlock figured out in The Sign of Three, and John doesn’t know it

 (Sherlock Meta by Loudest Subtext in Television)

xistentialangst said: [...] One question I had, though, was you mention that during the wedding speech, Sherlock realizes that John is bisexual. Can you explain further? I made a possible connection to "Hamish" being an analogy for a secret John kept about his sexual identity, that Irene knew, but is there more to it? If so, I must have missed it when it was going around [...]

Loudest Subtext in Television:

I’ve gotten a few questions about this, so I’ll just respond to them all more generally here.  I wrote about it a little here, but it was arranged around the use of Irene’s theme in the soundtrack, so I’ll explain it a different way.  Then I’ll talk more generally about why John’s bisexuality is something John is aware of and purposely lying about.

It is actually the realization that John was in love with Sherlock that makes Sherlock evaluate how he feels about that.  Sherlock determines he is in love with, and sexually attracted to, John in return.  If he hadn’t made that realization, the realization that he’s in love with John would not have happened.

Let’s look how The Sign of Three is set up:

In his speech, Sherlock recounts the stag night (where John got handsy with him) and the morning after when John said the Mayfly Man was going to great lengths to cheat… meaning sexless nights of connecting with people.  John apparently thinks being married is that boring.

Then Sherlock goes to toast their marriage, and the epiphany begins.  Mycroft walks him through someone who was lying about being in two groups at once and how all the things that make it look like that person is actually in two groups are not a coincidence.  Sherlock remembers John being jealous of Irene — “if you’re looking for baby names.”  Sherlock is getting gay vibes from the Major Sholto relationship, and the army in general.  (Seriously.  The camera in The Bloody Guardsman case.)  Sherlock remembers John flirting with him.  He remembers John saying the next morning that married men just cheat because marriage is boring, apparently, and Sherlock knows John isn’t cut out for domestic life.

Thus: the connection is made somewhere in his brain that John was in love with him and lied about it the whole time.

This sets Sherlock off into a panic.  Remember: he couldn’t even believe John considered him a best friend.  How does Sherlock feel about this?  That’s when he works through his sexual identity, throws off Mycroft as a representative of the idea that caring is not an advantage, and declares that it’s always John Watson.  This makes sense, because we know from A Scandal in Belgravia that Sherlock did not realize that both Molly and Irene were in love with him because he didn’t think that it was possible for someone to be in love with him.  Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t bother working through his sexual and romantic issues unless he’d deduced that someone was in love with him first and the idea appealed to him for once.

Consciously, though, he still thinks he’s solving a murder.

The lying angle is referenced again outside Sholto’s room with “delayed action stabbing: all the time in the world to create an alibi” — Mary is John’s alibi for hiding his feelings for Sherlock.  (John’s previous girlfriends were alibis, too, which is why John couldn’t keep track of who was who in A Scandal in Belgravia.)  Once the literal case is solved and Major Sholto declares that he and Sherlock are alike, I think that’s when the romantic epiphany consciously sets in for Sherlock.

That’s why I don’t understand readings that assert John isn’t consciously aware of his feelings.  For one, Mycroft said it was an intentionally planned lie to hide one’s identity, not a lack of awareness.  Past that, I always thought John absolutely knew he was attracted to Sherlock from the first episode, and consciously knew he was in love with him from the pool scene forward.  In  A Scandal in Belgravia John began his struggle with telling himself it was never going to happen, as I outlined.  And he continues that struggle through series 3.

Repression can explain some things, but conscious attraction explains everything.  Repression doesn’t explain why John is so forthcoming bringing up the conversation Sherlock overheard at the power station.  Repression is also a less direct explanation for why John looks so grim at the beginning of his stag night: why wouldn’t he be happy to see Sherlock?  Sherlock isn’t a dick to him anymore.  We see later on in the night that John does like drinking and spending time with him.  It’s my reading that John didn’t know what it meant that Sherlock was acting like a human being lately, and Sherlock had been waltzing with him, and he needed that answered because he was having second thoughts about getting married.  When the stag night begins, John’s torn between bringing it up and putting Sherlock off, or bringing it up and fucking Sherlock, and the idea that it shouldn’t matter because he’s getting married and it’s shitty to hurt Mary when she got him through the past year.

Yes, I’m actually saying that John was consciously ready to cheat if Sherlock was willing, which before that episode I would have NEVER suspected John would do.  But series 3 made it much clearer to me how badly John wants Sherlock.  John doesn’t feel great about it, but there it is.  We know he has a complex, anguished inner life.

(We have other evidence that John has consciously felt in need of an answer and has been looking at an opening: the fact that he gets them both drunk at all; that he puts Sherlock’s name on Sherlock’s head; on the bench he switches from the topic of Sholto to the idea that Mary and Sherlock are the only two people who have ever turned his life around — and does so with the cryptic segue “changing the topic entirely” in order to allow for plausible deniability if it goes poorly.  Which, we know from previous episodes is how John always approaches telling someone he’s attracted to them: he teases them out first, then goes in for the kill quickly if he gets a positive signal.)

At the start of His Last Vow John has known how he feels about Sherlock for four or five years or whatever the timeline is, and that’s why he hasn’t been seeing Sherlock even though he wants to.  Sherlock said things to him at his wedding he never expected to hear from Sherlock and it’s driving him crazy.  That’s why in His Last Vow he keeps telling himself that Sherlock is a sociopath that doesn’t care about people even though we know John knows better.  It’s like he’s purposely deleting Sherlock’s whole best man speech.  There’s no reason for John to do that unless he’s torturing himself with it.

It’s harder to imagine that a repressed guy would avoid Sherlock for a month.  As far as John knows at the start of the episode, either his feelings for Sherlock are 1) requited, which he isn’t the least bit sure about, but would be a threat to his marriage and future family life because John knows he would be on that immediately, or 2) his feelings for Sherlock are unrequited, and it’s too painful for him to be around Sherlock because Sherlock acts so in love with John that it gives John false (or so he thinks) hope.

Remember, John has been pining after him for four or five years now.  He saw Sherlock die, still thought he was a straight sociopath and it didn’t make a difference to his feelings, and then Sherlock came back to life even better than expected.  John is going nuts.  Absolutely nuts.  He has a wife and child and he’s desperate to quit feeling things for Sherlock at this point.  He needs to be able to keep Sherlock in his life as a friend but he’s having trouble doing that when His Last Vow starts because he’s been in love with him for too long.

I suppose anything is possible, but I feel a repressed guy would keep giving in to the urge to see Sherlock and just feel hazily conflicted every time without knowing why.  A guy who consciously knows he’s attracted would consciously avoid Sherlock, though.

As His Last Vow goes on, though, the message John is getting from Sherlock is that Sherlock is straight, that Sherlock clearly can’t do relationships if he fake proposes to people and calls love a “human error,” that Sherlock doesn’t have feelings for John if he’s pushing him and Mary back together, and that he shot Magnussen for Mary if anyone —  Sherlock literally only says, “Give my love to Mary.  Tell her she’s safe now.”  Sherlock never says he did it for John.  It should be obvious he did it for John — but when you’re John Watson, right then, you’ve convinced yourself Sherlock is a straight sociopath, so it isn’t obvious to John.  John can’t make sense of anything because he’s done letting himself believe Sherlock could feel anything for him.  It’s too painful to keep contemplating.