The Consequences of Normal, by Turtle

[fierceturtle]

Fic today! I really think this may be the last. I haven't written much of anything in over a year, to busy learning to sew properly. But this was sitting on the hard-drive from several months ago, and I was motivated to clean it up enough to post before the new series of Sherlock airs next week. Its not much, but I hope you enjoy.


Title: The Consequences of Normal
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Rating: PG
Pairings: only what you chose to read into it
Length: 1129 words
Summary: “Couldn’t you at least pretend to have some basic social skills every once in a while?”

John took one look at the expression on Sergeant Donavan’s face, and on the faces of the two witnesses, and knew there was no point in even trying to apologize for Sherlock this time.  Instead he decided a tactical retreat was in order, and by some miracle managed to catch up with Sherlock before he finished getting into a cab.  

 

He hesitated just a moment before shoving in beside his flat-mate.  He might be almost as angry as Donovan, but he didn’t want to count on how long it would take someone other than Sherlock Holmes to find a cab out here at this time of night.  However, it didn’t mean he had to let the infuriating detective off easily.  “Sherlock, that was their dead father you just insulted.  I don’t care what you deduced about him from the books on the side table, if it didn’t have a direct bearing on the case, they didn’t need to hear it.  Even if it did, and I can’t see how, they didn’t need to hear it like that!“  John forced himself to sigh and lean back in the seat, it was no use shouting, he would never get through to his friend like that.  Sherlock hadn‘t even turned to look at him.  

 

Sometimes dealing with Sherlock dealing with others was way more exhausting that the last three nights of violin music and very little sleep, although he was sure those weren‘t helping either.  “Couldn’t you at least pretend to have some basic social skills every once in a while?”

 

John was expecting this to be met with more silent disregard, and it was, but John noticed just how still Sherlock had gotten, the line of his back going stiff beneath his coat.

 

“Sherlock?”

 

“I did that once.”  Sherlock’s posture didn’t change, and his voice was quiet and had an unfocused quality to it that John had never before heard while they were on a case.  Not to mention that he had no idea what the man was talking about.

 

“Pardon?”

 

“I did that once, pretend I mean.”  Sherlock turned slightly away from the window of the cab, but didn‘t look at John.” Back in my early twenties I spent nearly eight months pretending to be perfectly normal.”  His mouth quirked at that, but it most definitely wasn’t a smile.  “Got myself a job, a girlfriend, some mates down at the pub.  I became an Arsenal fan.  Thought it would be a challenge.”   His voice was still quiet, nearly a monotone, but somehow he made his distain of the whole thing evident.  

 

John, despite himself, was intrigued.  “And was it?  I’ve seen you fake sincerity several times, you seemed to do it quite effortlessly.”

 

Sherlock waved a hand dismissively.  “Those are simple goal oriented exercises.  I know exactly what emotional state I need to portray to get what I need, and I can drop it the moment it no longer serves the purpose.”  A faint shudder passes through his shoulders.  “Keeping it up all day, every day was horrible and absolutely exhausting.“

 

Still angry about Sherlock‘s earlier behavior, John felt the need to stand up for the rest of the human race.  “You know, most of us feel an emotional connection to the world all the time, we don’t have the option of tuning it out like you do, we muddle through.”

 

“Yes yes,  but you truly feel the emotions.”  Sherlock was warming to his topic now, the earlier quiet expressionless tone working its way up into a proper rant.  “I had to observe and deduce the social context I found myself in, then compare to a previously  compiled control list to determine the acceptable range of emotional/social responses and decide where on that spectrum I was going to place myself.  After which I would have to remember the proper physical cues to display when indicating that precise response.  I also needed to make note of how I reacted and file it away for future reference to make sure that my responses remained reasonably consistent over time, or at least, that they varied only as much as typical human capriciousness could account for.”

 

John was a bit stunned, as he always was by any brief look inside Sherlock’s head,  “That does sound extremely difficult.”

 

“It was horribly difficult and yet mind-numbingly boring at the same time.  Hours of thought wasted on whether I should raise my pint with the right hand or the left? Should I greet her with a hug, or a kiss on the cheek?  As long as I was around any of my circle there was no room in my head for anything but cascades of the absolutely most mundane.”  A slight pause while he flicked his eyes over towards John, but he didn’t really look at him.  “I stopped being able to sleep, my mind grabbing the time alone to fly off the tracks and get as far from all the artifice as it could.  Those people, thinking  I cared, while I made elaborate plans to…”

 

He cut himself off finally turning and looking John in the eye for the first time since he stormed out of the crime scene.  “And wouldn’t that have been such a boring story of its own, in the end.  Just another set of friends and acquaintances being interviewed on tellie by someone with jaded eyes and fake horror, as they said things like. ‘I never suspected a thing.’ and ‘He was such a friendly guy.”

 

John shivered at the image, all too easy to picture, especially since he had started paying much closer attention to police press conferences.  “What happened?”  He asked abruptly, mostly to derail his thoughts before they traveled down that road any more.

 

Sherlock shrugged, but his eyes stayed on John.  “I walked away.  Left the pub one night, and never went back.  The girl I was seeing tried to report me missing, but of course I was easy enough for even the police to locate.  I wasn’t hiding.  I’m sure after they talked to me they went back and told her I was a arrogant heartless prick, and she was better off without me.  Sometime even the idiots who walk a beat for the Met are right, they had no idea just how much.”  

 

His eyes briefly noted the turn onto Baker Street, but returned to John.  “Since then  I have always been resolutely myself.  It doesn’t make me friends, and it certainly isn’t ‘good’ or even ‘fine’ but it avoids the boring old endings.”

 

They have pulled up outside of 221, but John feels frozen to the spot.  Sherlock is eyeing him now with his full intensity.  “Don’t ask me to be normal, John.  Please.  Because for you I might just try.”