Chapter Text
”I'm not having this conversation with you, John,” I tell him.
And I mean it. I always mean what I say. I see little point in saying something I don't mean. Including when I mean to lie.
”We've discussed the matter quite often enough. Exhaustively, in fact. On at least seven separate occasions. On most of which you have been far more sober than you are now.”
”Maybe eight is the charm, then,” John offers, smirking like the stubborn idiot that he is.
”Please. There is no charm in eight.”
The smirk grows into a vicious smile.
”You don't even know how the proverb goes, do you, Sherlock?”
”Irrelevant. It's three or seven or some other 'magical' number. Basically all it means is that people are unnaturally fond of repetition. I'm not one of them.”
”No, you really aren't...” John says very quietly. Very meaningfully. ”But fine. Won't bring it up again. You just keep denying you have needs - very human needs, I might add - just like everybody else. Needs you can't just will away, or wank away, or whatever it is that you do. But we're not having that conversation again.” He mimics zipping his lips. ”Won't say another word.”
I get up from the desk, where I had been sitting quite comfortably when John wobbled in with his malt-heavy breath and his inane questions, grab my laptop with me and head for the armchair. I take a moment, settling into my chair and positioning the computer on my lap, before I tell him the obvious. For the eighth, charming time.
”John. I'm not every.”
John is still standing by the desk, leaning heavily on his elbows and needing all the support the hard surface can provide. I turn to watch his eyes slide shut beneath his knitted brows, then open again slowly, apparently in the hope of blinking his inebriated mind back to clarity.
But all that comes out of his mouth is, ”Every?”
”Yes, John. I'm not every,” I repeat. Showing truly remarkable patience in the face of sheer idiocy, I might add. ”Everyone. Everybody. Every Tom, Dick, or damned Harry.”
I take a deep breath before I yield to the temptation of using some other appallingly humdrum turn of phrase. Then I enunciate very carefully, so that even the dullest pencil right at the back of the box will hear me.
”I - am - not - normal - John.”
John rubs his palm over his face, then sighs exhaustedly.
”Yes, I'm well aware of that, Sherlock, thank you. Sorry for choosing my own words.”
The fourth pint of bitter on John's breath fills the sitting room, mingled with the disappointment of a date gone wrong. It is violently obvious that it hasn't been her. It's him. It's always him.
The poor woman must have been bored out of her tiny mind having to listen to him drone on about the damp weather, having to watch him open the doors, pull out the chairs, over-tip the waiter, be the perfectly boring gentleman. Why he chooses to hide his passionate and so delightfully adventurous nature under endless layers of sheer boredom and hideous flannel shirts with the buttons done all the way up (why all the way up?), is as annoying to me as it is off-putting to his array of girlfriends.
”I take it the date with the lawyer wasn't a screaming success?”
”Oh, I don't know. There was some screaming.” John nods his head. Or possibly just lets it slump against his chest. ”The last thing she screamed to me was that I should go and find the difference between fact and fiction, and then fuck myself over it. Or on it. Possibly with it. Something to that effect.”
”Rude.”
”I thought so, too. And she was an English teacher, not a lawyer.”
”Somehow that makes it worse.”
”Yeah.”
I refrain from asking, what piece of fiction had provoked this sudden outburst of hers. Literary debates have never been able to hold my interest.
So, instead I say, ”Starting to see why I don't bother with such matters?”
”Sort of.” John is silent for a while, and I have high hopes that the conversation has met its timely end. The hour is late, there are still a couple of internet searches I need to make before I can continue writing up the results of my experiment, which John so rudely interrupted. The slices of brain which I managed to procure from the ever-helpful Molly won't stay fresh forever, should I need to repeat my analysis.
And just when I think myself free to return to my brain tissue, John carries on.
”But don't you sometimes think you're missing out on something? Don't you have, I don't know... needs?”
”No. And yes.”
”Yes?”
”Of course I have needs, John. We wouldn't be having this little chat - again - if I didn't have the need to breathe, for instance.”
”Yeah. Cheers to that.” John lets out yet another sigh that turns into a beer-reeking burp. ”But even though you think you're above it all, above this whole sodding normal world, there must be something inside you, something that needs more than just... something. Oh, god. I don't know. Forget it.”
It's almost adorable, the way his intoxicated mind tries to steer the matter away from himself and towards anyone else – which, of course, in the confines of our flat, means me.
He's been turned down, his masculinity called into question, and what does he do the moment he sets his foot over the threshold? He launches a drunken attack on me for neglecting to want something apparently ”everybody” wants: a deep, meaningful relationship with another a human being. Or possibly just intercourse. (Both interpretations appear valid in this context.)
I try to point out that I already have him as a friend - which, in itself, is a new and exciting social arrangement to me, and that it's still early days to tell whether it's one that I wish to continue on a permanent basis. And the longer this conversation lasts, the murkier the future of that arrangement becomes.
However, it seems our friendship is just another part of my pulling him into the dark, dank, lonely pit of ”confirmed bachelorhood”; a term which seems to bear some deeper meaning to John.
”You're not normal,” the suicide-dater sums up as he finally dares to abandon the stronghold of the desk and slouches into his own chair, right across from me. ”And to hell with the rest of us poor, ordinary buggers.”
All in all, I'm starting to get rather annoyed with his accusatory tone of voice. It's time I deal the whole matter its death blow, and bury it safely under layers of don't-ask-don't-tell. John is a soldier, after all, he should be familiar with the concept.
”I don't mean that I'm extraordinary,” I reply, ”which I am, of course, but regarding these...”
I make a hasty and impatient gesture with my hand.
”...these sorts of things, these needs, I must say my tastes aren't...”
My hand does another dance through the air, a time-honoured means of signalling the loss of words. I try not to overdo it, although John's too drunk to notice anything more subtle.
”My tastes are not of the norm, you might say.”
Yes. That will silence him, I do believe.
John lets out a prolonged ”Ah”, then rolls his eyes in a most annoyingly dramatic way.
It takes him a while to rearrange himself. And it takes me not nearly as long to realise what he's doing.
Of course. It is the Good Doctor Approach, as advised in all the proper textbooks on bedside manners: chin pressed down, brows lifted high up, hands folded neatly in his lap, and his voice deep and calm, every word carefully chosen and considered, as he starts his lecture on how things really are - which he knows best, of course, because he is a doctor. It would be more convincing, though, were he not pissed as a newt.
”You do know, that when it comes to matters of, of...”
Now it's John's turn to do the ritual hand waving, but, of course, in a more moderate, doctor-like manner.
”...of a sexual nature, there really is no 'normal' any more. People are actually pretty open to different... avenues of... pleasure.”
I nearly laugh out loud hearing John swallow that last word. Man of the world, he is, educating the Victorian relic that he conceives me to be in the many and fantastic ways of sexual pleasure!
”Please. I can tell you haven't travelled any avenues tonight. Or for the last nine weeks.”
”Six.”
”Nine.”
”Fine, seven.”
”No, it's been nine weeks since you've been intimate with a woman. Shading a round ten, actually, if we carry on arguing about this for much longer.”
Now John’s voice rises along with his eyebrows, and he shakes his head so violently I fear he may vomit.
”Oh, fuck off, Sherlock,” he spits. Yes, there's actual spittle, though John's sitting too far from me for it to hit me anything but metaphorically. ”This from a man who has never had any kind of a relationship with anyone, and only leaves the house for bloody murder!”
With due indignation, I tut at him. ”Only if the case seems worth my while. The amount of blood involved bears no significance. And as for the other matter, I thought I covered that conclusively enough with 'I'm not every'.” Then, too irritated to consider what I'm about to say and too eager to put an end to this little chat of ours, I add, ”I have a very specific set of preferences.”
”Oh, you mean your...” There's an audible, almost theatrical swallow. ”Your sexual preferences?”
It's almost endearing to hear him talk about my sexual anything, as I've never even considered that I might possess a sexuality, nor has it ever intrigued me enough to attempt to define one for myself.
”John. Let's not.”
”You know, I do understand about these things,” he persists. ”When my sister first came out, I-”
Oh, how typical of John to think ”preference” is about gender. How utterly mundane. There are really only just two options, after all: the one or the other - or a combination of both. And I care not either way.
At this point, I'm not just annoyed any more. I'm insulted. It’s time to stop wasting precious time and put an end to this conversation.
”No, John. I didn't mean boys-or-girls. I meant that my particular avenue of pleasure interjects with the somewhat darker alley of pain.”
That shuts him up, finally. That, and the compelling need to urinate, as evidenced by his knees which have been drawing closer and closer together for the past twelve minutes. He leaves the room without another word - that is, if one doesn't count the odd grunting noises issuing from his throat, which might indicate either a shock-induced aphasia or lager-induced nausea.
When John returns from the loo, I'm already sitting in my room, the door closed and the laptop opened.
I have a plan. It’s simple and straightforward, much like the target himself. And most importantly of all, it will shut John up for good.