Victorian

Lush. Lavish. Ornate. Damn well Victorian.

If pressed, that’s how John describes Sherlock. There’s such an abundance of the decorative to the man—arse, eyes, hair, lips—that surely he’s the very embodiment of that fussy esthetic.

Even Sherlock’s ‘enemies’ give him that. Sort of.

“If that ornamental idiot doesn’t clear out of my crime scene, so help me…” grouses Anderson.

“And tell your pretty little boytoy I’ve had just about enough of him for today…” threatens Donovan.

Since he was old enough to hear, to doubt, and then to demean, someone, somewhere has been telling Sherlock he’s gorgeous.

It wasn’t until their second month as lovers that John finally understood the obvious. Not only does Sherlock believe these people lie, he desperately fears they don’t.

Because if he’s as pretty as all that…what happens the day he’s suddenly not?

Cue the brilliant John Watson, and the beginning of a life-long habit.

John insults Sherlock.

“Your breath could kill a corpse,” he’ll say some mornings, but then lean in to kiss his dozy love on the mouth. With tongue. Twice.

“You could lodge a hive of bees in that knotted mop,” he’ll grumble, and then lift that messy hair from the back of Sherlock’s neck and nibble sweetly.

“Your eye bags have bags you know; you look like shit,” he’ll pronounce, then tug Sherlock onto the sofa and stroke his forehead until they both fall asleep.

And so it goes, for months, for years, for a life.

John tells the beautiful man that sometimes he emphatically isn’t. And that it’s just fine.

“I love what you look like, but I don’t give a flying fuck what you look like. Your beauty makes me hard, it gets me wet, but the most gorgeous thing about you isn’t here, or here, or here—” John’s fingers drift over a face, a cock, an arse. “—it’s right here. Endless, and beautiful. Indomitable, and mine.”

And John rests his hand over Sherlock’s strong, swift-beating heart.

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I think Sherlock, like the man who plays him, is conflicted by his looks. The world tells him he’s beautiful, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t believe them. And if he does…what then? What happens to the praise when the beauty fades? (*Ahem* Me? Emotionally invested?) So…this gorgeous Sherlock portrait by the talented Euclase.