ivyblossom:

They are such sassy bitches to each other (and everyone else actually)

You know, there are three real loners in this story, as far as I can see: Sherlock, Mycroft, and Moriarty. They are so bright, and/or so psychopathic, they really can’t form normal human relationships. They are (or were) all three of them dominantly alone most of the time. That came across with Mycroft primarily, who has lots of influence but spends his holidays alone, but also in Moriarty. And Sherlock…but only before he met John.

It is actually quite a feat, Sherlock finding John. Don’t you think? John comes back to London as lonely as Sherlock must always have been. But he is not exactly a loner. He has lots of friends. It’s surely him that arranged that Christmas party. He knows that Lestrade’s name is Greg. He’s clearly an introvert, but not he’s not a solitary person, really. If he hadn’t met Sherlock, he would have probably met a nice lady, gotten married, made a wide circle of friends. If John hadn’t met Sherlock, Sherlock would have no one. John is now his constant companion. Sherlock loves having an audience, someone to take care of him, someone to help him. He’s settled into having John around remarkably quickly. Wooing and winning John Watson is probably the great feat of Sherlock’s life. (Let’s not fool ourselves: Sherlock did woo and win John Watson. Have we ever seen Sherlock work so hard to impress anyone has he does with John? His discomfort when John thinks the flat is a disaster, explaining himself and his deductions without annoyance or frustration, his calm patience with John’s contributions, curing John of his psychosomatic limp, the bizarre intimacies?)

Moriarty clearly envies Sherlock this relationship. He sees it as the big difference between himself and Sherlock. He sees it as a weakness, but in the end I think he was jealous of Sherlock’s relationships. John, Mrs Hudson, Lestrade, okay. But mostly John. “I should get a live in one.” That’s a bit of a lonely statement, I think.

I wonder how Mycroft sees it. You’d think he’d be a bit jealous too. No one seems quite as alone in this story as Mycroft Holmes.

Well, now Sherlock is alone again too. He must miss John so much. At least as much as John misses him. Probably more.