four beats from soft, part one

[fleetingmadness]

part i: an introduction.

Before Sherlock Holmes, John Watson was just John Watson, wounded-in-action army doctor with a small flat and an even smaller pension. Every day, he went through the motions: coffee, stare at his blog, tea, stare at his blog some more, occasionally some shopping, and maybe a pint at the end of the day. Some days he saw his therapist and some days he just didn’t bother. Every night, he drowned in his skin and sometimes he screamed. He’d call Harry just to breathe and Clara when he cried, but Harry doesn’t know that. Every once in a while he thinks that he regrets being such a shut-in when he was younger, because maybe he’d have more friends and maybe he wouldn’t be sitting alone in his flat staring at his wall right now, but then he remembers that friends can die and hearts can be broken and he rubs his bum leg appreciatively because, really, who needs that?

After Sherlock, John is happy, but if you asked him, he'd still say "colleague" no matter how many not-dates they've had that week.

♫ | LOOK OUT, SUNSHINE! - the fratellis.
i've seen a half a dozen ghosts, but i don't believe. i'm a cynical cunt and i'm much too lazy to change. // and sing that old song, how does it go? look out, sunshine, here's the punchline: no one gets you anymore.

♫ | THE REELING - passion pit.
look at me, oh, look at me, is this the way i'll always be? now i pray that somebody will quickly come and kidnap me. everyday i lie awake and pray to god today's the day. here i am, oh, here i am, oh when will someone understand?

♫ | BLINDING - florence + the machine.
and all my bones began to shake, my eyes flew open. no more dreaming of the dead as if death itself was undone. no more calling like a crow for a boy, for a body in the garden.

♫ | FLASH DELIRIUM - mgmt.
my earthbound heart is heavy, your heartbeat keeps things light. with the violence forever threatening the night, and even if this hall collapses, i stand by my pillar of hope and trust.

Before John Watson, Sherlock Holmes was content. He didn’t have many friends or really any social relationships, but he had Mycroft and he sort of had Lestrade and that was enough for him. Mycroft visited often and always said “behave” instead of “goodbye,” but then again, he never really left, anyway. At least once a week he’d ask Sherlock if he was happy and Sherlock would just stare, because it’s a stupid question and he’s tired of answering it. He was a sociopath. Happiness did not come with the territory. But he was content, truly content, to just be Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, instead of Sherlock Holmes, person. Once, Lestrade invited him to dinner with his family, but he mistook Sherlock’s stare for a no when it was really a why, and he never asked again.

After John, Sherlock decides that “high-functioning” doesn’t make the term loose enough, and he spends an entire afternoon flipping through a psychiatric dictionary before settling on “high-functioning sociopath with a positive cathexis.”



♫ | MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES - regina spektor.
now he sits down at the table, right next to the window, and begins his quite ascension without anyone's sturdy instruction to the place that no religion has found a path to, or a likeness.

♫ | EXTRAORDINARY MACHINE - ben sollee.
if there was a better way to go, then it would find me. i can't help it, the road just rolls out behind me. be kind to me, or treat me mean; i'll make the most of it, i'm an extraordinary machine. i seem to you to seek a new disaster every day. you deem me due to clean my view and be at peace and lay. // do i so worry you, you need to hurry to my side? it's very kind. but it's to no avail; i don't want the bail. i promise you, everything will be just fine.

♫ | THE SCIENTIST - the dandy warhols.
in me, the scientist, always stuck on trying this. i try to live on science alone. analysis and freaky sensitivity, we've gotta live on science alone.

♫ | PAVLOVE - fall out boy.
something make my chest stir. something make my head blur. i'm not ready for a handshake with death, no. i'm just such a happy mess, whoa. // i'm the invisible man who can't stop staring at the mirror. i want to make you as lonely as me so you can get, get addicted this (you can get, get addicted to this now).



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{ part one | part two | part three | part four }