anarfea

So a comment I got from out_there on my Tropes Showdown (where I ranked "actually unrequited pining" pretty high on my tropes list) had me thinking about unrequited love, in fanfic and in life, and why I enjoy these kind of stories so much.

I think there are two main things I like about the unrequited love trope. One, I consider unrequited love to be selfless and brave. There's really something beautiful and almost mystical about loving someone without having any expectations of having that love returned. I think Molly's love for Sherlock is the clearest example of that kind of love that we have in BBC Sherlock canon. She loves Sherlock, she's there for him when he needs her, and she doesn't expect anything from him. And we see that love mature from this kind of crush in season one where she puts on the lipstick and asks him out for coffee to this partnership where she helps him fake his death in S2 and then in S3 she just quietly watches over him at the wedding. She's there for him and she cares for him. And then of course there's S4, where they actually exchange "I love you"s, and some people (myself included) saw Sherlock's "I love you" as sincere, so that means that maybe Molly finally got what she wanted in the end (which I think she did, judging by her huge smile and that yellow chair in the outgoing montage). But that does't change the fact that for 4 seasons she's basically just loving and putting herself out there and being vulnerable without really getting anything back for it and IMO there's something really beautiful about that.

Anyway, I recall that some nasty fans on twitter who were upset about Sherlock telling Molly he loves her were trying to pretend that they were somehow upset about that scene because it was somehow unfair to Molly, and not because they were bitter that Sherlock says "I love you" to Molly and not John. And there was much wanking about how it's antifeminist that Molly's been pining for Sherlock for so many years, and Molly should move on, and Molly should get a girlfriend (preferably DI Hopkins), and how pathetic Molly is and shouldn't BBC Sherlock showcase stronger women. And Lou Brealey responded to all of this by saying, "Loving someone after years is not reductive, retrograde, antifeminist or weak. Fight the patriarchy, not me, and read some fucking Chekhov." And I just loved that response, because I feel like Lou really gets it, she understands that loving someone without expectations is a sign of strength, not weakness. And she brings that understanding to her portrayal of Molly which just really deepens that character and especially the "I love you" scene. So yeah, much as I love Sherlolly fix its where Molly gets what she wants, I think it's really beautiful when she doesn't, too. It takes great courage to love like that.

But my absolute OTP for unrequited love is Holmecest. Mycroft pining for Sherlock is just almost as good as Mycroft and Sherlock getting together for me. I love the restraint, the self-denial, in Mycroft wanting Sherlock but never ever telling him. I'm a glutton for that kind of self-sacrifice. And there's also something really exquisite about savoring the temptation of something you want but won't allow yourself to have, knowing that you will never have it but enjoying the tension of the desire itself. There's a poem by Xavier Villaurrutia called Nocturno de Los Angeles (Night of the Angels) which has this one stanza which really embodies Holmescest for me:

Si cada uno dijera en un momento dado,
en sólo una palabra, lo que piensa,
las cinco letras del DESEO formarían una enorme
      cicatriz luminosa,
una constelación más antigua, más viva aún que las otras
Y esa constelación sería como un ardiente sexo
en el profundo cuerpo de la noche
o, mejor, como los Gemelos que por vez primera en la vida
se miraran de frente, a los ojos, y se abrazaran
     ya para siempre.

Translation:
If each one were to say at a given moment,
in only one word, what he thinks,
the six letters of DESIRE would form
an enormous, luminous scar,
a constellation more ancient, more brilliant
     than any other.
And that constellation would be like a sex organ burning
in the deep body of the night,
or, better, like the Gemini who for the first time
     in their lives
saw themselves brow to brow, eye to eye
and then took each other in their arms forever

It's such a powerful poem. Villaurrutia is of course talking about same-sex love. The love that dare not speak it's name etc. etc. But one of the things I love so much about Holmecest is it's a way to explore the idea of forbidden love, which I experienced as a young teen in the form of a queer relationship which I kept a secret, in a way that's free from all the angst of homophobia. Mycroft and Sherlock (or in the case of unrequited love, Mycroft) have a reason for keeping that love a secret, and it's a very good one. In Mycroft's case maybe the thing he wants is something he should not have. So there's something noble in his holding himself back and keeping his secret for Sherlock's case. I also like fic where Sherlock pines for Mycroft too, but Mycroft says no, for both their sake. It's this idea that maybe sometimes we shouldn't have what we want, but the desire is delectable all the same. Painful, but an exquisite kind of pain. A beautiful, luminous scar, as Villarrutia describes it. I used this poem as the preface to my own fic, The Love Song of Mycroft Holmes, which is actually a riff on The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. That was basically me wallowing in Mycroft's unrequited pining for Sherlock in poem form. I'm actually quite proud of it. For those who prefer their Mycroftian pining in prose form, I'd recommend The Properties of a Binary System, by Caitlyn Fairchild. It's part two of a trilogy, and I would recommend reading the whole trilogy as all of it is good, but the second part I think is the best.

There is one kind of unrequited pining fic I approach like a land mine, and that is Sherlock pining unrequitedly after John. I think pretty much every same-gender attracted person has been in love with a straight friend at some point in their life, and it fucking sucks. I like angst, but not that kind of angst. There is one exception to this, and that is fic where Sherlock moves on from John. I just re-read Consolation by Mildred and Bobbin because I was talking about Sherstrade with someone on tumblr and I was reminded how much I loved that fic. It's an old work, written in the S2 hiatus, and in it Sherlock comes back from the dead only to find John has pretty much cut him out of his life. He ends up hooking up with Greg, starting out pretending that Greg is John, but once Sherlock and John reconcile and start being friends again and Greg breaks off his relationship with Sherlock because he doesn't want to be Sherlock's second choice, Sherlock realizes he misses Greg and begins courting him in earnest. I adore that fic. The gradual shift from Sherlock pining for John to realizing he already had something better he was just too dense to see it is like a balm for my soul.

I really want to write a post S4 fic where Sherlock starts out pining for straight!John but eventually realizes that Molly, who has quietly loved him all along, is who he actually needs. And again, I think that I need to write that fic because it speaks very much to my own story. I was in a very unhealthy, closeted relationship with my first girlfriend which I held on to for way too long because I bought into toxic myths about soulmates and "the one" and didn't want to give up what I thought was my only shot at love, also because my queer identity was tied up in that relationship and giving up on it felt like caving to the forces of homophobia. Or something. I'm still processing these feelings a decade later. But I was very deeply in love with someone who was no good for me, in some ways still am in love with this person, and I've made peace with the fact that I will always pine a little bit for what maybe could have been (they are now out as bi and genderqueer and poly), but I don't want to go there because I'm happily married now. It's okay to maybe indulge that desire a bit to savor that tension, that possibility, but in the end I know that I'm never going to let myself get involved with that person again and that's for the best. And after John beat the shit out of Sherlock in S4 I really feel that John falls into that category for Sherlock. Maybe he loves him and maybe a big part of his identity is tied up in loving him but at the end of the day he is better off not being in a romantic/sexual relationship with John because John is no good for him. And Molly I think is. Or could be, if he'd let her. And maybe he wills till pine for John a little bit when he's with Molly. And that's okay. And I'm okay.