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inevitably-johnlocked:

justacookieofacumberbatch:

iamjohnlocked4life:

iamjohnlocked4life:

devoursjohnlock:

tinybeeholmes:

the face of a man about to tell a joke

Oh yeah, this makes sense because when he finally tells the joke and John looks away, he laughs and laughs and laughs…

Oh no, wait, actually he looks like his heart has been smashed into a million pieces, because he knows this is the last time he will ever make John laugh.

What I love about this moment is that we’re given a parallel in TEH 

(actually, two) 

to explicitly show us that Sherlock uses humour to defuse emotional situations.

He has trouble showing emotions, and knows John struggles as well, so he tries to make jokes to break the tension, to give them an out for having to deal with their emotions. This doesn’t always work—

—but it’s the only way he knows how to protect them both against too much intimacy. 

It gives them both an emotional release, sometimes through anger, sometimes through laughter, but either way, lets them avoid the true underlying emotion, the one neither of them can voice.

By comparing these scenes, it’s painfully clear how much of “a joke” this is to Sherlock. He doesn’t have the emotional release of laughter or adrenaline in this scene. He’ll seek his release with other, more dangerous methods on the plane. It’s telling that in TAB, when he’s in his own mind, he is unable to diffuse the intimacy confrontation in the greenhouse. MP!John doesn’t take the bait, doesn’t relent when he ‘jokes’ about revolvers or murderous ghosts. Sherlock desperately wants this intimacy with John, but is still so afraid of opening himself up to it. I hope that TAB is a turning point, an MP dry run, and in S4 we’ll see him confront his emotions with John head-on, rather than retreating with humour.

tagging @inevitably-johnlocked @jenna221b and @monikakrasnorada because I know they love meta and pain

And a complementary bit from TSoT, because why not

so know this: today you sit between the woman you have made your wife and the man you have saved – in short, the two people who love you most in all this world. And I know I speak for Mary as well when I say we will never let you down, and we have a lifetime ahead to prove that.

Now on to some funny stories about John…

I think Sherlock may have adapted this coping mechanism from John; he does it because he thinks it’s what John wants. If we go back to S1, and look at the times of heightened emotions, we first have the big emotional moment at the end of ASiP, where Sherlock realises that John has killed a man to save his life. There is a charged moment of confrontation, then we get:

JOHN: But he wasn’t a very nice man.
SHERLOCK: No. No, he wasn’t really, was he?
JOHN: And frankly a bloody awful cabbie.
(Sherlock chuckles, then turns and starts to lead them away.)
SHERLOCK: That’s true. He was a bad cabbie. Should have seen the route he took us to get here!
(John giggles, and Sherlock smiles.)
JOHN: Stop! Stop, we can’t giggle, it’s a crime scene! Stop it!

And then in The Great Game, after the highest emotional scene of the series, we get this progression:

JOHN (breathlessly): Are you okay?
SHERLOCK: Me? Yeah, I’m fine, I’m fine. Fine.
(He turns to John, wide-eyed and breathless.)
SHERLOCK: That, er … thing that you, er, that you did – that, um … (he clears his throat) … you offered to do. That was, um … good.
JOHN: I’m glad no one saw that.
SHERLOCK: Hmm?
JOHN: You, ripping my clothes off in a darkened swimming pool. People might talk.
SHERLOCK: People do little else.
(He looks down at John, then grins. John laughs.)

John has modelled this behaviour for Sherlock, How to Defuse an Emotional Bomb, and so when Sherlock returns and finds himself on uneven footing, this is what he falls back on, this is what feels safe, this is what he thinks John wants.

Thanks to Ariane DeVere for the transcripts! A true fandom hero

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Brilliant, @iamjohnlocked4life!

Just to pile on, how about Sherlock joking about John and Mary not needing him around when there’s “a real baby on the way”?

Just… for ONE MOMENT IN MY LIFE CAN I LIVE PLEASE.

Stop I can’t breathe