ASiP Retrospective: They Won’t Work With Me (Because Only John Will)

 (Sherlock Meta by radvera, just-sort-of-happened and ivyblossom )

radvera: 

That’s right, it’s 2016 and I’m writing a Johnlock meta about A Study in Pink. Luckily, it doesn’t matter that I was an infant when this episode first aired because Johnlock is the one facet of all our lives that is eternal and will always be. I’m also revisiting season one again because I love dying.

Not that we haven’t noticed and written extensive metas about everything in the show, but did you ever notice or write an extensive meta about how Sherlock says, “[They] won’t work with me?” The first time he says it, he’s talking specifically about Anderson, saying he needed an assistant but that Anderson, for some reason, wouldn’t work.

SH- Who's on forensics?
GL- It's Anderson
SH- Anderson won't work with me

Later on in the episode, it becomes very clear why Anderson wouldn’t want to work with Sherlock. But what about that second time he says it? Sherlock is asking John if he’d take a look at the body; Lestrade protests, saying they had a whole team of medical people outside, and Sherlock replies, “They won’t work with me.”

So what, exactly, does that mean? Anderson, understandably, is not willing to work with Sherlock on cases, but did Sherlock really offend the living hell out of an entire team of medical experts to the point where they can’t bear to put aside their personal distaste for the sake of professionalism and work with Sherlock on a case? Actually….possibly. But let’s take a look at that first “Anderson won’t work with me.”

GL- Well, he won't be your assistant
SH- I Need an assistant.

Why did Sherlock insist that he needed an assistant? That’s like, not even true. Sherlock doesn’t NEED an assistant, he just would LIKE one. He works better with one – speaking aloud to someone else helps him think – but Sherlock saying he needs an assistant and then ultimately agreeing to come to the crime scene even though Lestrade didn’t promise him an assistant at all sounds like he was just trying to kick up drama when there was no question whether or not he would go in the first place. But was he just being a baby, or was he trying to get out a message to a certain someone sitting 10 feet away? In this context, listening to this conversation, the audience is clearly meant to think immediately of John when Sherlock says that he needs an assistant. The real question is, did Sherlock intend for John to be his assistant from the minute Lestrade walked through the door?

After twirling around for a while, Sherlock puts on his coat and his little scarf and bounds out the door, leaving John and Mrs. Hudson in the dust. Mrs. Hudson then briefly talks about her husband to a pissed-off-looking John, and John yells because what else does John even do besides yell. Mrs. Hudson is off to make tea and John opens up a newspaper. We’ve all seen it like a hundred times so I’m paraphrasing.

But then…Sherlock comes back. He appears at the door again, purring about how John is an army doctor. Did you guys ever notice how long of a while it is between the moment Sherlock leaves and the moment he comes back? True, it seems like a very short time – only a few things happened and only a few words were said. But it’s kind of a long time for Sherlock to be gone, especially the way he was swooshing around, and we know how fast Sherlock can swoop down a flight of stairs when he has someplace to be, only to decide to…come back? And, unless I am completely misinterpreting the layout, there are only two flights of stairs between the ground floor and Sherlock and John’s flat, because the flat is just one floor up, right? So…when did he decide to come back? When he heard “Damn my leg” and decided that he couldn’t miss out on John’s super hot yelling? It’s possible, but it’s also possible that Sherlock had intended to come back into the room anyway. What I’m saying is, Sherlock must have deduced somewhere between meeting John and the moment when he asks him to join him to the crime scene that John would actually WANT to go. That he missed the adventure and would WANT to be his assistant. And, after all, Anderson won’t work.

GL- We have a whole team right outside
SH- They won't work with me.
GL- I'm breaking every rule letting you in here...

Fast forward to the second time Sherlock says “They won’t work with me.” An entire professional medical team refusing to even be in the same room as Sherlock, or just Sherlock bullshitting so Lestrade will let his bf take a look at the evidence? I think it’s the latter. I think Sherlock is not only curious about how good of a doctor John really is, but he wants to see if they’re actually compatible. (Not that being a hot army doctor doesn’t immediately put you on Sherlock’s Acceptable People List.) And maybe Sherlock isn’t necessarily comfortable with or ready for a relationship at this exact moment, or maybe he is, but at the root of it all, having John as just a friend is a really, really good start.

And maybe it’s not just Sherlock talking, either, when he says “They won’t work with me.” Maybe it’s the writers trying to tell us something. If something is repeated, pay attention to it, right? This show has constantly, since the very beginning, repeated lines, made the same thing pop up multiple times as if to say, “Hey, this is important so why not pay some attention to it, because we are trying to tell you something here.” (@ the entirety of The Abominable Bride) When Sherlock says “They won’t work with me”, maybe it’s the writers, the producers, the Sherlock team, Jesus, and all them, trying to say, “No one else will work.” Lestrade quickly and nobly offers his squadron of doctors and Sherlock shoots them all down at once. They won’t work with me. Because there is only one person in this entire show that really, truly, undeniably works with Sherlock.

They won’t work with Sherlock, because only John will.

just-sort-of-happened: 

I love this. Also, makes the TEH Works Beautifully sign a callback to this. A reminder of how well they fit together.

ivyblossom:

But John’s first outing with Sherlock isn’t a test of John’s skills at all, or even of his compatibility as an assistant. John doesn’t need to prove himself useful at that point, which is good, because he isn’t. Sherlock still wants Lestrade’s team to help him. The reason Sherlock brings John along to the crime scene was to prove a point to Anderson, to Sally, and to the rest of Lestrade’s team who refuse to work with him. What was that point?

You won’t help me? That’s fine. You’re expendable. I don’t need you. I’ve found someone else to take your place, look how easily I did that! Does that change your tune? Don’t you want to be inside the room rather than outside it? 

Sherlock is intensely petty and childish, and he brings John along to make Anderson jealous. He wants to shut Anderson out the way Anderson wants to shut Sherlock out. The fact that John is an army doctor is helpful in making his case for bringing him in to Lestrade, and make the whole thing seem at least marginally legit. But it’s not John he wants at that point. John is just his accommodating flatmate with an obvious lust for adventure. It’s Anderson and his team he wants in the room with him.

You can tell this is true because the most important part of John’s presence at that first crime scene was certainly not his contributions. He agreed that the victim was dead. John is resolutely not useful at the crime scene, but Sherlock isn’t petulantly disappointed about it. In fact he was gracious and patient with John’s stumbling deductions; how out of character! He doesn’t actually care what John says about the body. He doesn’t need John to have any deductions about it. He only wants John to take up time so that Anderson has to wait at the crime scene. He wants to slam the door in Anderson’s face and make him wonder what was going on behind it. So John has already fulfilled his role, as far as Sherlock’s concerned. Proving a point.

John goes on to completely surprise Sherlock several times: first by being as enthusiastic about deductions as Sherlock is. He wasn’t counting on praise. He wasn’t even looking for it, and he doesn’t know what to do with it. But it’s nice, and it changes things. Then, John goes on to demonstrate his ultimate capacity by figuring out where Sherlock is and shooting the cabbie with the steadiest of hands. Sherlock really wasn’t expecting that. 

What started as a petulant trick to get Lestrade’s team on side turned into discovering not only an assistant but a true partner. That’s the moment when John becomes, not just someone “who will work” with Sherlock, but someone who takes his russian roulette life and makes it about something much more. John makes him more than a puzzle solver. John makes him a hero.