You Just Know

Some people always feel the need to label themselves. In truth, some people find it easier to get it out in the open, so everyone knows who they are. They'll tell everyone exactly who they are and what they do upon the first handshake.

Hi, I'm Scott, I'm 42, straight, married with three kids, hard working, Christian. I go to church every Sunday and I have a white picket fence.

There are some people who avoid labels as much as possible. Of course, they won't be rude – they'll introduce themselves with a brief description, but they won't tell you their entire life history. Even if you know them for years, you might still be finding things out about them. Unless of course, you figure out every tiny detail of what makes up their being just by looking at their mobile phone for ten seconds.

John Watson didn't particularly like labels. Especially when it came to his sexuality. He'd often tell people that he wasn't gay, and technically speaking, that was true. He wasn't. He couldn't say he was bisexual either really – in fact, most of the time, he didn't know what he was. When his older sister, Harriet, had come out to their parents about being a lesbian when she was just 15, John had felt a little pressured to make a finite decision about what he was. How did Harry know? Was it built in? Was she born with a manual that told her how to decipher her feelings, and she magically knew that she was only attracted to other women? Or maybe it wasn't until she actually ended up with another woman that she realised? It confused John to no end.

There was no doubt in his mind that he was straight. Not in the slightest. He loved women. The way they spent a little longer in the bathroom just to make themselves look presentable, just for him. The way their bodies moved, so soft and elegant. The way their bodies looked – their supple curves just begging to be touched; their hair, even messy as they woke up for the morning, how it draped over their shoulders; the make-up, even the women who chose to wear less of it, or even none at all, how their faces could look so fresh and beautiful. Yes, John definitely loved women.

And they loved him. In school, he'd had quite a few girlfriends. He wasn't exactly the school stud, and girls weren't lining up to get in his pants, but he was definitely boyfriend material. He was kind and caring, and didn't have a bad bone in his body. His parents always said he'd make a good husband, but he probably wasn't the 'fun, outgoing' type that seventeen year old girls were after. He begged to differ.

Yet, despite all his surety about his love for the female population, he had always been hesitant to call himself 'straight'. It was like there was a voice, niggling away in the back of his mind, telling him:

There's no way you can be straight. You looked at that other boy's arse in the changing room.

'That was one time, it doesn't make me gay.'

It does. It totally does. You're gay.

'I'm not gay.' And there was John Watson's new catchphrase. Even though he hadn't figured himself out yet, he'd deny it until the end of his days. Sure, he'd looked at the physique of a few men, but everyone did that. If anything, it was just a jealous comparison between his own body and theirs. He wasn't gay. He couldn't be. He didn't find himself yearning for a strong, muscular body in the dead of night, not like he yearned for a graceful, lithe woman. He never looked twice at men.

Sure, there was that one time when he'd joined the army at 21, and he and a few of his comrades had gotten a little tipsy. There might have been a few escapades, but everyone had at least one experience with the same sex, didn't they?

He thought back to how Harry must have discovered her sexuality. Every child is branded by society to want to grow up leading a heterosexual life. From advertisements right down to the dolls children play with; each and every little girl is expected to grow up and be a housewife for each little boy, who will be a manly businessman, providing for his family. So how did Harry break the mould?

"Well I always had my suspicions," she'd said when he'd finally plucked up the courage to ask her. "I mean, my eyes always wandered to the girls instead of the guys. Sure, I tried to be straight. I dated that guy for a few months, do you remember? ... Daniel? Duncan? ... Whatever. He was an arse. But no matter how hard I tried, men just didn't do it for me. They were all hard angles and straight lines, while women are curved and beautiful."

"So you always knew? You just... looked at women and found them more attractive, and that's how you knew?" he asked.

"I guess. I knew I was attracted to women, but it was only when I had my first girlfriend that it was definite. You meet someone, John... and you just know."

You just know. So that was it. Well that made no bloody sense. John had met thousands of men in his time – it was hard not to, being in Afghanistan. None of them did it for him. None of them confirmed his suspicions. He couldn't be gay then, he supposed. He must be straight. But then there was that voice again.

Why so quick to put a label on it?

'Quick? Fuck off; I'm having an existential crisis at 25.'

Just saying, John. Why do you need to be 'gay' or 'straight'? Why can't you just be you?

'Because...'

Well shit. He didn't know. Maybe it's just the way society plans it. Children are expected to know what they want to do with their lives by the age of 18, so sexuality can't be any different. You're expected to have the label branded on your skin for the world to see for all eternity. And those who are label-less... Well, they're the people who don't get laid, right?

No. Not at all. John still hadn't given himself a label by the time he came back to England for a break from the army at the age of 31 – and he was still getting some.

John's sexuality wasn't the biggest thing on his mind. He wasn't exactly planning to settle down anytime soon, and being in the army prevented him from having any proper relationships. So it took a backseat for a good few number of years. Nobody really asked what his 'type' was, so he didn't have to tell them, but he stopped pondering it for as long as possible.

And then it happened.

He left the army and came back to London at the age of 36, needing a job, needing money to pay the rent and ideally, needing a flat share. And that's when Mike Stamford, good old Mike Stamford, introduced him to the man who would send his existential crisis into overdrive. Sherlock Holmes.

The guy was – to put it bluntly – an arsehole. He was arrogant, and precocious, and pretentious and just a big... arsehole. But John found himself astounded. Sherlock was like no one he'd ever met before, and he swept him into this world of mystery and crime and scary older brothers and kidnapping and shooting old men through windows. And John loved it. He'd thought he was ready for the mundane life after coming back from Afghanistan, but Sherlock was the injection of excitement and danger he so desperately craved. Sherlock was his drug.

At first, it was purely platonic. He admired the man beyond belief – his intelligence was astonishing, the way he could figure a person out just by glancing at them. John was in awe of his friend for the majority of the time. But it was only when he noticed the little things that he knew he was fucked. The way Sherlock's eyebrows would crease together when he was concentrating; the way he'd steeple his fingers under his chin when he was sat down; the way he could be so intelligent, yet so sassy; the way he'd wrap that blue scarf around his neck without even needing to think about it; the way he'd set off on a wild goose chase across London without a second word, just expecting John to follow (and he always did); the way he knew how John was feeling before he did, despite not even knowing how to deal with said feelings; it was the little things. And well shit, John liked him a lot more than friends.

John wasn't gay. He wasn't attracted to men. Like Harry had said, they were all hard angles and straight lines. But Sherlock... Sherlock was different. He was the cool rain on a hot summer's day. He was the burn from touching the flame. He was so different, and so amazing, that John couldn't even describe him in words – instead he had to use clichéd similes.

You meet someone, and you just know.

And boy did John know now.

He wasn't gay. He wasn't straight. He wasn't bisexual. He wasn't anything. He wasn't labelled.

It wasn't men, it was just him.

Just Sherlock Holmes.

And that's all fine.

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