Holmes and Watson 'just good friends' The problem is, [the jokes] fuel the fantasy of the few into flames for the many. People presume that's what it is, but it's not. The actor, 35, said there was a huge amount of "weird fan fiction" on the internet, where people "write stories and do manga cartoons of what they think you get up to behind closed doors. Some of it's funny. Some of it's full-on sex. Downey Jr's portrayal of Holmes in the recent Hollywood films, the second of which has just been released, prompted a wave of speculation. In 2009, he raised the possibility that Holmes was a "very butch homosexual," and he has described the lead characters as "two men who happen to be room-mates, wrestle a lot and share a bed." Roger Johnson, the editor of the Sherlock Holmes Journal, said that in the original stories the Victorian detective is "essentially asexual with no erotic interest in women or men" and that Watson is "something of a ladies" man but a faithful husband to his wife." Mark Gatiss, co-creator of the BBC series, said: "We've had lots of fun with the notion that, in the 21st century, people naturally assume they are a couple. The stuff that people really enjoy is the relationship between them. The banter and the rows and the proper feeling between them, which really leaps off the screen. Freeman, 40, who plays Dr Watson, said he did not think there was anything sexual in the relationship. There are a lot of people hoping that our characters are rampantly at it. If you want to think that they are secretly at it, then you can, but we've never played anything like that.