Can we just take a moment to appreciate how ashamed and embarrassed John is of his limp in asip? ESPECIALLY KNOWING IT WAS IN HIS MIND BUT THERE WAS NOTHING HE COULD DO TO STOP IT. Ladies and gentlemen, John Watson thought this would be the rest of his life. He never expected that limp to be gone. He would spend his life with a cane despite being in his 30s, hobbling around like an old man, unable to participate in life the way he wanted, doomed to a permanent sedentary mundane sad life. And he HATED IT. Now imagine a person came along. And within 24 hours of meeting you had fixed that. Sherlock cured John of something John considered a likely permanent disability. Imagine how that would feel.
John was a goner from the start. It wasn’t just attraction, it was help and hope that Sherlock gave him.
Agree with this so much. He literally must have felt like Sherlock had given him his life back, like magic.
I think in a way this is why John is wary of falling for Sherlock and goes ahead with the wedding to Mary. When the Fall happens, John experiences the reverse of ASiP: Sherlock can give life but he can also take it away. In MHR we see John struggling, and John himself says that #sherlocklives means that #johnwatsonlives.
I imagine that, amongst everything else, one of the worries John had when Sherlock ‘died’ is whether his limp would stay away without him. Knowing that someone has that kind of power over your emotions, psyche and whole life is beyond the standard amount of terrifying. I think it goes a long way towards showing why John tries to cling to ‘moving on’ even when Sherlock returns.
