How much does John suspect?

 (Sherlock Meta by Ivy Blossom)

Question:

Hi Ivy. How much do you think John suspects of Sherlock's feelings for him? His face when he sees the footage of Sherlock dragging him out of the fire- did he get an inkling right then and there? What does he think at the end of His Last Vow? Thank you for you input!

Ivy Blossom:

John knows that Sherlock loves him. He has to know, Sherlock told him so, more than once, at the wedding, and has demonstrated it several times since. The end of His Last Vow is way too abrupt an ending to their relationship, and they both hate that, and there isn’t enough time, space, or privacy to express the grief that entails for both of them. But there never is, and, I suspect, there never really will be.

We know how John feels about losing Sherlock. We watched John lose him once already. We watched him cry two years after the fact. We saw his nightmares return after a month without Sherlock. He’s addicted to Sherlock. (That’s canon: he says that.) How can he possibly put all this into any kind of demonstration or statement at the end that would convey it effectively? There isn’t any such thing.

He could have said more, it’s true. He could have said, “I will never be truly happy again without you,” but he does have a baby on the way. Who knows? Babies make people happy, don’t they? Can Mary and all those secrets John doesn’t want to know make him as happy as he is with Sherlock? (Spoiler warning: I doubt it.) He could have said: “I love you, Sherlock, I’ve always loved you,” but, well, emotionally-constipated John is unlikely to say that. And Sherlock could have said, “I love you too, John. I love you more than anyone.” But they weren’t going to have that conversation. Not with witnesses. Not even alone, frankly.

Even if they had said all that, their meaning wouldn’t be any clearer to each other. John knows Sherlock loves him. he doesn’t know the extent to which Sherlock loves him, though, because Sherlock has never expressed it entirely, and may not completely understand the extent of it himself (though he certainly is getting closer to understanding it through series 3, I think). John doesn’t know that it was for love of him that Sherlock decided to fight to live. Sherlock’s love for John is life-altering, and John doesn’t know that. “I love you, John,” doesn’t cover it. In the end, it’s not a very descriptive sentence, is it!

Sherlock knows that John loves him too, because John told him so. He is John’s best friend, and he is extremely chuffed, stunned, and honoured to be that. Sherlock doesn’t understand that John calling him his best friend is the biggest understatement ever conceived. He doesn’t know that it’s the most basic and obvious deduction possible about their relationship. It’s a low rung on a pretty tall ladder. Sherlock thinks it’s the ultimate trophy (and it is a pretty good one), that it’s the deepest depth he could achieve with John, and he’s wrong. He is John’s soulmate. Sherlock is John’s missing piece.

John isn’t surprised to see Sherlock pull him out of the bonfire at Appledore. He knows Sherlock did that, and we’ve already seen his face after that. He was grateful for it. He wants to give Sherlock a big hug for it, probably, but they don’t do things like that, so he just comes over and tries to go back to helping Sherlock with cases instead. Which is kind of like saying, I LOVE YOU TOO, SHERLOCK. He acknowledges Sherlock’s heroism with his forgiveness and his willingness to get back to their life of crime-solving together, the thing Sherlock treasures the most.

He knows Sherlock cares about him, certainly. But his face while watching the footage of it at Appledore is the stunned realization that it was Magnussen who put him in the bonfire to start with, and he’s bloody angry about it. There no surprise in him there that it was Sherlock who saved him.

The reveal by Magnussen that Sherlock’s affection for John is something quite extraordinary, that John is his damsel in distress, making it apparent that Sherlock secretly wants to be John’s Prince Charming isn’t something John picks up at this point. Sherlock hears it, and already knows, obviously, but John isn’t paying attention to Magnussen while he plots out his AU fanfic about them with his expensive drink in his hand. John is busy watching himself on film and realizing that this is the guy who set it up and filmed it. Magnussen plots out and films his fanfics, see.

But Magnussen is right. Sherlock does want to be the Dragon Slayer, John’s Prince Charming. And John already knows that Sherlock is his soulmate. There’s no room to pack all that into a minute of the tarmac. A handshake as a form of goodbye is like calling these two friends: it horrifically understates what’s going on between them. But that’s what they do, they horrifically understate how they feel. So it’s a fitting false ending, really. When you think about it. Fittingly unsatisfying.