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In some ways, Sherlock has him at hello—or rather, at “You’re an idiot. No, no, don’t be like that, practically everyone is.” The words sting, smarting in his skin just above neurons that still remember how to curl round a trigger—but something of the thoughtless denigration summons the same masochistic thing in him that gorged itself in the army like leeches on blood. Many sand-encrusted days passed where he could not remember which between John and maggot was his name, and yet in Afghanistan’s crucible all had somehow been right with his world. Not until later does civilian run strong enough in his blood to take true offense at Sherlock’s ego, and by then the man has cracked open John’s sternum and curled within the cradle of his ribs.
John is strong enough not to immerse himself completely in Sherlock—there is a fine line between masochism and self-destruction, after all—but 221b is a softer world and he has become used to others on its periphery squishing the two inhabitants into one. To them, he is undoubtedly the lesser half in the SherlockandJohn (although better is an argument for another day): an unassuming toy soldier, paint steadily chafed off for love of a country until he is covered in flaking skin. Only Sherlock is enthralled by the shiny pink patches where his flesh does not quite cover, in the nonconformity beneath John’s clothes, and somewhere John has developed a furtive nighttime need for Sherlock to stroke those threadbare places.
While Sally Donovan (and, well, everyone else) sees them as a trainwreck of inevitability, the good doctor is resolved to say nothing of his wants to happily-married-Sherlock—physician, heal thyself and all. Instead, he makes the tea and gives only token grumbles when a new case development tears him away from his first proper meal in days. Autonomy and dependence are in perfect alignment for the first time in John’s life and he wonders if that is indeed the definition of love: strong enough to let him lap London’s miles a half-step behind Sherlock and somehow subsist on starlight itself. And it’s loud—thundering in his ears and stuttering out in giggles as they collapse in the flat post-chase. Loud and alive and fucking infuriating on the days when Sherlock is behaving like a child, because his first instinct is make it better and not for fuck’s sake, you wanker.
None of this surprises John, not really. What does surprise John is the sheer primordial wrath of it all: as someone who has always seen the emotion as something edged in lace and never knew love to be so violent. The cabbie’s death is the first time he feels it, stirring and shaking and exploding down his gun in the space between heartbeats, and it has never since stopped raging at Lestrade for wanting a statement when the detective is tired and raging at Mycroft for every furrow in Sherlock’s brow even as his mouth says bloody hell, Sherlock, leave off your brother’s diet. And there is guilt, because Greg Lestrade is harmless and they would probably be shagging if the former wasn’t hung up on his adulteress wife and the latter had more than one heart to spare. Mycroft is harmless as water is dry, but when it matters the Holmes brothers are a unit.
She isn’t, though. The Woman.
She is red lips and sharp shoulderblades and Sherlock is cutting himself on her in want of a twinning mind. They even look alike, all dark curls and porcelain skin but the snarling thing in John wants to eat this one—tear slivers off her skin and let them shudder wetly down his throat. Moriarty deemed him a pet when he embraced the man, assured of his tameness, unaware that the snipers were the sole thing between living Jim and dead Jim’s blood making pink clouds in the water. And he feels Jim’s wrongness (please, Jim, will you fix that for me?) in the steadiness of his left hand: because Irene, of course, knows better than the consulting criminal. Jim can play the Holmes boys, but she has toyed with the very worst of mankind in her years of misbehavior and can spot the bad days beneath John’s skin.
John, therefore, doesn’t need to repeat the quiet promise he made in the warehouse. He doesn’t need to give voice to what thrums on an intimate wavelength between them. She knows. And if there is anything he can trust in Irene Adler, it is her steely self-preservation: because it keeps her aware that if she touches Sherlock again she will claw in John’s killing arms and he will blink at Lestrade with her blood in his mouth.