Chapter Text
John knew that being "Internet Famous" was no modest thing. He knew exactly what it meant when he had 1,895 hits for his blog in a few hours. He knew what it meant when a woman stopped him in Tesco's for his autograph, and when that nice chap with the tacky tie from the publishing house had visited, asking him to draft his blog entries as a manuscript.
He knew they were famous, and he knew Sherlock knew as well, even though the detective kept quite a stoical, haughty distance from any sort of acknowledgement of "fame". He acted like nothing had changed, like he could still go out into a busy London street without getting accosted by avid fans or interested journalists.
John rarely brought it up, except when he needed to. Such as when Sherlock wanted to go through Oxford Street on a Saturday, and they had barely escaped into a cab before a bunch of (mainly women) fans tried to grab hold of The Coat, as it had been dubbed. (Alongside The Shirt, The Suits, The Hair, The Gloves, and The Crop.)
That was something John didn't really understand- the obsession. These people were obsessed. Sometimes, when he couldn't sleep, he would lie in bed, and ponder over the absurdityof the level of devotion some of these fans had.
He had to change the privacy settings on his blog, so that only people he knew could comment on his entries, after his last entry had received five hundred and seven comments, all of which went along the lines of "WOW!" or "I LOVE YOU!" or "TELL SHERLOCK..." and before long, John was witnessing something extraordinary.
It was a cult. A cult of Sherlock. They called themselves the "Sherlockians". They made t-shirts. They bought the same clothes as him. They dressed up as him in the streets, and went around with magnifying glasses. They had bloody meetups where they would sit in Speedy's cafe and discuss the cases. There were flash mobs.
Hell, John had received an amused email from Lestrade with a link to EBay, showing miniature crocheted dolls of himself and Sherlock.
For a while, it was utterly incomprehensible. Then, before long, John accepted it, and started to find it funny, and was somewhat flattered.
Sherlock never even acknowledged it.
John wondered if these people (women) would adore Sherlock so much if they knew what he was actually like as a person.
Then came the fanmail.
It seemed somebody had initiated it, because on one Wednesday, Sherlock received forty nine envelopes, all from fans. He had made to discard them, but John, genuinely curious, had kept them, and read them.
Twenty one marriage proposals, eight gushing descriptions of love, fourteen letters of appreciation, and six highly graphic descriptions of the author's intent to find and murder him. John had found those ones particularly funny, and when he showed Sherlock, they both had a little chuckle.
When Harry emailed him with another link, John realised just how far their fame had stretched.
There were blogs dedicated to his blog. There were YouTube channels. There were websites. There were eBooks of his writing!
John had openly gaped at his laptop screen when he found the "John Watson Appreciation Society". It wasn't just Sherlock anymore who had fans. He had tens of thousands of men and women (more men than Sherlock did, at any rate) who were openly declaring their devotion to him.
People had managed to drag out old photos of him from archives, ones that he himself had never seen, although he had a suspicion Harry had something to do with that. She claimed not to have any connection with the websites, but he had a feeling she was the administrator for many of them.
Sherlock's attention was finally caught when a picture of him when he was a child leaked out and went viral.
"What on earth?"
John poked his head around the kitchen door to see Sherlock frowning at his laptop.
"What is it?"
"Somebody got a hold of my old school photograph and posted it online," Sherlock said, without much emotion except for some scepticism. "There are laws against that," he added absently.
"Let me see!" John came over, eagerly peering over Sherlock's shoulder.
Sherlock had many tabs open on his browser, for all different types of social networks and blogging platforms. Even the Metro newspaper.
They all had on them the same picture of a very disgruntled little child with a mop of curly hair glaring at the camera.
"Aaaw," John cooed, just to annoy his friend.
"This is getting out of hand," Sherlock shut the laptop abruptly, and shot John a lethal look, before standing up and pulling out his phone.
"I wonder where they got it from."
"Somebody who works for my old school must obviously have posted it," Sherlock muttered, texting swiftly. "I don't really care, but is it really necessary?"
"I suppose it is an invasion of your privacy," John admitted. "I'm sure they didn't do it to be malicious."
"No, no," Sherlock agreed inattentively. "Why do they even want to look at photographs of me?"
"Because they love you!" John chortled. "You're like their god!"
Sherlock seemed to like the idea of that, before rolling his eyes.
Either way, Mycroft got wind of the Sherlock Hype, and immediately had all the websites and accounts with the photograph taken off the internet. Somehow. There were literallythousands.
"Whilst I know the fan mentality is a little...large," Mycroft seemed to struggle for the right words, during his last visit to Baker Street, "they need to know boundaries. All celebrities have them in place."
John thought of superinjunctions and body guards and paparazzi, and shuddered. What had his life become?
His next blog post went something along the lines of:
Guys, whilst Sherlock doesn't mind you posting things about him, I'd like to remind you that he's still entitled to his privacy, and you should respect them. The photograph you all know about that was leaked onto the internet is just an example. But otherwise, thank you, as always, for the ongoing support!
I've got to go, the fire alarm has just gone off, and I'm aware that I left His Majesty alone in the kitchen with a blow torch and fifteen Seville oranges...
Holy hell! The response John got from one tiny blog entry!
We're so sorry Dr Watson!
Please don't hate us John!
We love you both so much! We didn't mean any harm!
We've made sure anybody who posted that photo has been reprimanded, and we made sure they deleted it!
I'm so sorry! I didn't realise!
It's not all the fans who posted the picture, only some of them! Please don't let their actions have any alterations to the way you see the rest of us!
The fans were actually bonkers. Actually one hundred percent bonkers.
John had to start having deliveries sent to Baker Street if he couldn't go out shopping during the quieter parts of the day. He had to quit his clinic job, because of the swarm of fans that registered to receive treatment from that particular surgery in the off chance they might get treated from him, and move to St Bart's.
Sherlock had to have an entourage if he wanted to go to a crime scene, and the fanmail was getting out of control.
None of this, none of it, however, was nowhere near as shocking as what John found next.
"John?" Sherlock called from the kitchen, one quiet evening.
"Yes?" John called back. He was half watching a TV programme, half reading a magazine, and had his feet propped up on the coffee table, a cup of tea in one hand.
"What is slash?"
"What is what?"
"Slash? I've never heard the term in such a context before. And do you know what the abbreviation RPF stands for?"
"What are you doing?" John asked, curiously, but also warily.
"There seems to be a new trend amongst the fans."
That alone was enough to get John out of his seat, and padding into the kitchen with interest.
Sherlock was sitting at the table, waiting for a sample to mature, whilst on the internet.
"RPF?" John asked, pulling up a seat, and looking over Sherlock's shoulder. "Er, somehow I don't think it is the Railway Protection Force."
One of Sherlock's fan's luridly coloured blogs was on the screen, and the post was entitled:
OMG Read this now! So hot!
With a link underneath that was called "Johnlock RPF PWP, no like, no read".
"Also, what is the abbreviation PWP?" Sherlock asked. "And what in God's name is Johnlock?"
Something uneasy settled in John's stomach. "I'm almost afraid to know."
Sherlock himself looked a little timorous, as he hesitantly clicked on the link.
A new window opened.
John barely got a glance of
Strong, hot hands stroked up my leg, wrapping around my thigh, whilst his soft lips nibbled at my ear. "Please, John!" I cried out. "Please! More!"
Before Sherlock had literally thrown the laptop away from him so that it went skidding across the table, and leapt from his seat.
"What the fuck?" cried John. "What the fuck was that?"
"I don't know!" yelled Sherlock, gripping his hair. "I think my retinas are burning!"
John was frozen in shock. What had he just read?
Sherlock looked at a loss. He was trying to form words, whilst tugging his hair out, as his expression went from terrified, to disgusted, to almost curious in the space of a second.
John had never seen something get such a reaction from his flatmate before. Except dead bodies.
Sherlock was still hyperventilating near the sink, but John reached out and picked up the laptop, like he might pick up a rotting rat. Squinting out of the side of his eyes, he carefully reopened the laptop, and peered at the screen.
What in actual fuck is this fuckery?
John was good at overlooking bad situations. As an army doctor, it was a necessity. So he skimmed through the...the...piece of writing, without fully taking it in.
"Ah," he said, after a moment.
It was porn. Erotic literature. The stuff women liked to read on holiday. And some men.
And it was about Sherlock and John, and from what John gathered, young women liked to read explicit pornography about himself and his best friend doing...doing...bad things to each other.
"Have you solved this mystery?" Sherlock bit out, still cowering near the sink, "Because I sure as hell have not!"
John almost smiled at his flatmate's overreaction.
"It's porn."
"What?"
John grimaced. "Please tell me you haven't deleted 'porn' from your hard drive, because I'm certainly not explaining it to you."
"Of course I haven't!" Sherlock snapped, and then blushed as he realised how that sounded.
Sherlock Holmes was blushing. John wanted to get a camera out. Or, he wanted to get a shovel, and dig himself a hole to die in. Although, John didn't really want to think about "holes" or "entrances" or anything like that for a long, long time.
"So what's so hard to understand?" John asked, then winced; 'hard' was going to be another word that he wouldn't be able to use for a long time. Actually, now he thought about it, so was the word 'long'. 'Long' and 'hard' were now banned words.
"What's so hard to- what?" Sherlock spluttered. "John! Somebody has written an account, from my point of view, about some sort of sordid affair between you and me! How can you possibly understand any of this?"
"It's just the fans," John tried to soothe. "They're just having...fun."
Sherlock sneered. "Evidently!" he said tartly.
"Just look at it like it's a joke," John told him. "There's no point getting too upset about it."
Sherlock snorted. "Of course you're not bothered! You are portrayed as a dominant male with a significantly sized penis. I'm sure if I found something where you were not written in such good light, you would be as upset as I am!"
Sherlock grabbed the laptop, and began clicking away, as John looked on in amusement.
A few minutes passed, and Sherlock said, "Aha!" and gave the laptop over to John with a smug grin.
The fiction was entitled "Master", and the description said, "Sub!John, Dom!Sherlock, BDSM, spanking, breath play, gun play, gags, whipping, blood, dub con, non con, orgasm denial."
John could feel his whole face heating up, and cleared his throat. "Is this really appropriate?"
"I want you to read it, John," Sherlock said, in a teasing tone. "I want you to read it."
"Piss off," John said jokingly, keeping his eyes away from the screen, and getting up. "I'm not going to read anything. This is perverted."
"Ah! So you admit that you're upset too!"
John breezed past Sherlock, who was acting rather manic, and went back for his tea in the living room. "Nope!"
John settled back on the sofa, dispelling the bad, terrible thoughts from his mind. Things were quiet for a while before he heard Sherlock screech, "WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD DO THIS TO ANOTHER PERSON?"
"You're not reading it, are you?" John called, scandalised.
"Oh, god, John! It's horrible! I wouldn't inflict this upon anybody!" Sherlock cried back.
"So you're not into kinky stuff?" John laughed, all in jest, but he got a response.
"How do people find these things arousing?"
"Stop reading it then!" John exclaimed, still laughing.
There was more quiet, before Sherlock called out again.
"They say you have a penis that is over ten inches, and considerably wide in girth. Do any of these women have a reference?"
"No!" John yelled, getting slightly annoyed. "Stop it! You'll give yourself nightmares!"
There was more silence, and John resolutely concentrated on the TV.
Then,
"Why am I more often than not, either the submissive, or sexually cruel?"
"Stop reading!" John yelled impatiently.
"Why do these women find the idea of us having sex even remotely exciting at all? We're friends!"
"I don't know, Sherlock," John sighed. He was glad he had left the room- he didn't think he could look Sherlock in the eye right now. God, how embarrassing!
There was more silence.
About fifteen minutes later;
"What the hell is 'Mystrade'?"
John's eyes widened as he realised, before he leapt off the sofa and made a mad dash for the kitchen, lest Sherlock become contaminated and spoiled with such poison that might traumatise him.