How John reacted to the ILY Scene

 (Sherlock meta by celticmoonbeam and waytoomanyhobbies)

celticmoonbeam:

Today I’m wondering about how John reacted to the ILY scene… Who has head canons about that that they’d like to share? Last night I had fun talking through the ILY scene with a friend who interprets it totally differently. She thinks Sherlock just loves Molly platonically, and I see him loving her romantically. (And we are still friends and we enjoy talking about it and seeing the other person’s POV! As fandom stuff should go.) While I was explaining my perspective, I was surprised how much I was describing things that happened in past episodes, rather than clues about his feelings in that particular scene.

My friend was surprised too. She loves Molly Hooper, but she got it firmly in her head in season 1 that Sherlock would never be interested in Molly, and so the little Sherlolly-esque details I fixated on slipped past her completely. She viewed all their scenes in light of Sherlock having no interest in Molly. (Again, total valid reading–this post isn’t to say that she’s wrong and I am right!).

Anyway… I found myself reshaping my headcanons about John’s reaction to the ILY scene. Now I’m wondering if he would respond a lot like my friend, automatically assuming that Sherlock isn’t interested and he said “I love you” just to save her life. After all, John wasn’t around for the vast majority of their scenes together. I don’t know that he ever picked up on Sherlock’s feelings. In TLD, he calls Molly the last person Sherlock would ever think of. So what exactly does he think is going on with the phone call? And how long does it take him to realize what’s really going on with Sherlock and Molly? After all the craziness of Eurus, I doubt that would be the first thing on his mind…

waytoomanyhobbies:

When the test first ended, John and Mycroft were ready to crack on like soldiers. Realizing that Sherlock wasn’t right behind them raises alarm bells. John turns back to find his best friend ritualistically placing the lid on the coffin, staring at the “I love you”, caressing the wood, and then repeating the word “no” before destroying Molly’s coffin with his bare hands. John is visibly struck by it.

John would have seen the entirety of Sherlock’s violent outburst until Sherlock finally spent all that emotion and slumped against the wall. He saw even more than we did of Sherlock screaming and breaking everything he could until he was exhausted. John has seen Sherlock remain calm in the face of innocents murdered before. Sherlock didn’t even have a outburst like this after identifying the supposed body of Irene, despite all Sherlock’s later melancholy. The incident would have to have raised some questions, especially thinking back to Eurus’s taunts.

John has been questioning Sherlock for years about his love life and hoping for Sherlock to find a relationship. John hadn’t picked up on it before then, but John has a history of wanting Sherlock to find romance, which could lead him to wanting to meddle. When John thought Sherlock may have found a woman in the two previous instances (Irene and Janine) John was pleased and very curious. He was very recently trying again to get Sherlock to find a woman who makes him the man he wants to be. John is quite invested in helping Sherlock find that romantic entanglement that he feels would do Sherlock good.

Not to mention that John has still only recently lost Mary, so how much of Sherlock’s outburst might have struck John as familiar from what he, himself, has recently gone through? It would be very odd for him to not start thinking back and reexamining what he’d seen between them.

It’s an interesting talking point. From my point of view, if John doesn’t know he should at least suspect. He’d be raising that subject soon enough if Sherlock didn’t take initiative with Molly first. John tried to play matchmaker for Sherlock only weeks before this, and he would probably be watching them like a hawk after this.