XENOGENIC CAUSE

By

Nikki Harrington

A companion piece to Quite Content.

Sherlock Holmes believes he had no choice over aspects of his character.

A pre-pre-slash story.

Written: September 2008. Word count: 500.

I am not a man who believes in pre-determination or being ill-fated. However, there is part of me that I do believe I have no control over; that is due to some outside cause, introduced into me before my birth.

That is my sexuality; or rather my lack of it. I have no interest in women or men in regard to having a physical or emotional bond with. I have no needs or wants or desires in that direction.

And it is not just in regard to sexuality. Outside of the intimate friendship I have with Dr. John Watson I have no need for contact with others.

I do not understand love either as an emotion or a concept and I have no wish to do so. I have seen what love can do, and I often wonder why someone would choose to experience such a thing.

Once again the closest I have come to such a sentiment is what I have for, and share with, Watson. I enjoy his company and I value his assistance. I could not hope for a more loyal, more willing, more able man to have by my side during the cases I undertake. Nor could I wish for a better companion with whom to share my rooms.

And yet I was not truly aware of quite what Watson meant to me until he left my rooms to marry. To my surprise I found I missed his company, I found myself reaching for the cocaine bottle more frequently and yet turning away from it because he was not present to show his disapproval. When his wife died, I made it possible for him to return to my side, to my rooms and my life once more became balanced.

I may not know love and yet once or twice I have had the impression that Watson has feelings for me beyond those of intimate friends. He has never spoken of it; he has never given any indication of it, and yet I believe it is there. I know he will never speak of it and for that I am forever in his debt.

It is not because he is another man and that kind of relationship is forbidden in our cultural. If I were able to return his feelings, if I were able to understand them, I would not allow a small thing like it being against the law to stop me.

But I am not able to return them; I am not able to understand them. He is important to me; he is the most important person in my life. I do not know if he is aware of this, and I am unable to tell him, maybe even unable to show him. Maybe had I been made differently, had the outside cause not been introduced, then maybe . . . But we will never know.

I am who I am and I cannot change that. Nor, I believe, would my dear Watson wish me to so do.

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