Chapter Text
John watched Sherlock disbelievingly. "You really don't want to go?"
Sherlock shook his head. "I have experiments, John. I dont have time for such trivialties."
"Trivialties! This is important to me, you idiot! I'm inviting you."
Sherlock Holmes didn't look up from where he was dissecting a dead frog, an assignment for a class. "Yes, I'm aware. Tell Mycroft thank you for the ticket, but he'll have to accompany you himself."
"I don't want Mycroft to go!" John Watson replied heatedly, offended. "I want my best mate to go. Remember? Think of all the things I do for you. You owe me!"
"Don't act like you sacrifice things, John. You always want to come along, so stop complaining." Sherlock was annoyed with him. Sherlock was annoyed with him. John seethed.
"Excuse me? Complain? When do I complain? Whenever you play the violin all hours of the night when I sleep over, maybe? Or the general filth in your room?" John gestured at the clothing on the floor and the take-out boxes littering the dresser. The tips of Sherlock's ears heated up. "How about when you steal my clothes? Your refusal to accompany me on things I like to do?" John was ranting, he realized, but it was too late. He was on a roll. "What about when I found those animal parts in my fridge because you had 'no room in yours', remember that? Mum nearly went insane, thanks!"
"That was two years ago when I was fourteen. Anyway, I explained it to her, didn't I?" Sherlock asked petulantly, pouting.
"Oh, yes, right. I'm sorry. What was it you said? 'Sorry, ma'am, but storing these parts is more important than the stench that will be sure to seep into your kitchen. Not a problem, though, it'll clear up in a few days."
"Remembered that verbatim, did you?" Sherlock muttered.
"How could I forget, since my mom repeated it every day? 'A few days, he said, a few days. It's been a week, John!'" John imitated his mother in a shrill voice. "Father didn't let that one go. He blamed Harry and Mother for as long as it smelled, even though Harry doesn't even live with us anymore."
Sherlock's eyes flashed guiltily for a moment. That was all John needed to know that he got him. "Sherlock," he said pleadingly. "It's only for a couple of hours. Come on! Are we best mates, or not? Or is Mary Morstan taking that place?"
Sherlock's gaze shot up to John's accusingly. "Mary's going, is she?"
John had to bite back a grin as jealously and general dislike shone through Sherlock's eyes at the mention of Mary. "Yeah," John said nonchalantly. "She said she would. 'Called me not too long ago, actually, to tell me she was headed that way."
Brows furrowed, Sherlock frowned. "What," he said, "are we waiting for then, John? There's not a moment to lose!" and dashed to his closet.
John shook his head exasperatedly, the delighted grin on his face belying his elation at Sherlock's acceptance.
***
Maybe, John thought to himself, this is where I should begin to regret inviting him.
Sherlock was prattling on and on about facts about the play and how this or that happened because of this war which started because of that court case which was brought to this court by this man for that reason, in between insulting the teenagers playing onstage and the theater in general. Every other word out of his mouth was insulting and informational. John couldn't fathom how Sherlock made those things so alike and intertangled.
"Of course," Sherlock said, "if the owners of this accursed theater had any sense, then they'd upgrade from all this tacky red and gold, maybe change the curtains to something more exciting rather than more dull. Remember that bronze curtain they had? Horrid thing, yet, somehow, it looked better than this gold one. The theater looks.. smaller now," Sherlock said with a sniff.
"Really," John drawled, only half-listening. "How interesting." John craned his neck, looking for Molly. He needed to know if he needed to be in the dressing room by five thirty or six..
"John, are you listening? Or are you looking for Mary again? John?"
John felt a flash of pain in his shin. Sherlock had kicked him. "Ouch! What the bloody hell was that for?" John massaged his shin gently while he glared at Sherlock, who was glaringly right back at him with a surprising amount of heat.
"That was for inviting me to this stupid play, which I didn't want to come to in the first place, then looking around for Mary the entire time I'm here!" Sherlock had a hand propped on his hip self-righteously. John couldn't reign in his grin.
"Sherlock, don't be ridiculous!" John said, laughing. He thought he was looking for Mary?
Sherlock scowled at him. "I'm not stupid, John," he said with narrowed eyes.
John shook his head fondly. "Of course you're not. You're just occassionally blind and tend to make wrong assumptions when it comes to me." John winced after he said it. No matter how true it was, he wasn't going to hear the end of it for saying that, on top of everything else Sherlock was apparently annoyed with him for.
Sherlock's eyes widened and he sputtered for a moment before pointed and exclaimed, "There's Mary, John, the girl of honor! And for the record," Sherlock added coldly, "I never make assumptions." Then, he turned on his heel and stomped away.
John went to chase after him, but Mary attacked him with a fierce hug. By the time he had disentangled himself from her arms, Sherlock was nowhere to be seen.
***
"He'll be back, John. He'll be back," Ms Hudson, an assisting professor and his neighbor down the street, tried to reassure him. "He's just gotten himself into a bit of a tiff. He'll be back before the curtain rises, you'll see."
John wasn't so sure. He had an uneasy feeling in his stomach.
He knew he shouldn't have laughed about Mary, but it was so implausible that he thought it was funny. Mary and John were just friends; didn't Sherlock know that? And if he did, surely Sherlock didn't believe John when he said Mary would become his new best friend, right? Because that was irrational. John hadn't known Mary as long as he has known Sherlock, they weren't nearly as close, nor was she as interesting as Sherlock. But, then, jealousy was irrational as well, John supposed, even in best friends.
He hoped Sherlock would come to his senses and become his clear-headed and reasonable friend again, so he'd stay his friend.
John didn't know what he'd do if Sherlock wasn't his best friend anymore, but he certainly wouldn't promote anyone to that position once he was gone, God forbid he ever left. Did Sherlock not understand that? Or was he unable to?
John twiddled his fingers nervously and finished getting dressed, so he could go over his lines with Ms. Hudson and get into character.
***
Sherlock sighed a long weary sigh as he took a seat in the audience. It was thirty minutes in, and John had yet to appear onstage. Molly had already been in a couple of acts, as well as a few other people, but Sherlock had been uninterested and annoyed with John, so he hadn't bothered to watch it.
Now that he was inside, watching, John wasn't onstage. Sherlock sighed again, loudly, much to the annoyance of the people seated next to him, if their affronted looks were anything to go by. Then, he realized they were Molly's parents, and he had let out a sigh on her part. No wonder they were glaring. Leave it to John to get him a horrible seat with good intentions.
He tried to focus on the play, but he was so bored, his mind unstimulated by the so-far predictable plot and Molly's abysmal acting. He began deducing things about the lives of the people seated in the audience. The woman in the row in front of him was in a fight with her husband, the man behind him was her husband, the man who was balding wasn't related to anyone here, and the old woman at the end of the aisle was pretending to be asleep. Oh, and how could he forget? The girl who just sat next to him was the bane of his existence.
"Hello, Mary. How are you on this fine evening?" Sherlock asked cordially. He bit the inside of his cheek. John said he had to be nice.
"I'm fine, Sherlock. How are you?" Mary crossed her ankles daintily and smiled at Sherlock politely.
"Fine, fine. Do you know when John is coming onstage?" Sherlock asked, impacient for him to be a part of the play, so he wouldn't be so bored any longer; and if it was also for a valid reason to ignore Mary as well... Well, she didn't need to know.
"Oh, he didn't tell you? He comes out in the act after the next, but the next act is so short that he'll be onstage soon enough." Mary was staring at the stage expectantly.
Sherlock hummed in response, then proceeded to ignore Mary. He heard her babbling on and on about how excited she was for John, but he didn't absorb a word of the conversation. Then, John came onto the stage, and Mary didn't seem worth even the effort of acknowledging in his mind that she was seated next to him, did she?
***
John was nervous, so very, very nervous. His legs were shaking the tiniest bit, and his voice was squeaky. Ms. Hudson was fluttering about him, trying to calm him down, but he was too nervous.
He'd be onstage, and Sherlock wouldn't be out there watching him to make sure he didn't fail. His parents weren't here, and Harry wasn't going to make it, even though she said she'd come. She'd gotten into a fight with Clara and would most likely be spending her night at a bar instead of attending her brother's play.
John took a few deep breaths and repeated to himself what Molly had told him, quite dramatically, when she found out Sherlock had left: the show must go on.
"John! John! Are you listening to me?" Ms. Hudson was waving her hand in his face. "Sherlock's in the audience, John, look," she said excitedly, pointing. John could see Sherlock, seated next to Mary.
Instead of being calm, John got more nervous. He wondered what Sherlock would think of his performance; but then Sherlock was looking at him, he realized, from where he was peeking out of the curtain, and giving John a reassuring smile and giving him a personal round of applause.
And John breathed a sigh of relief, immediately reassured and filled with confidence knowing Sherlock believed in him, and went on stage when it was time, did an outstanding performance of a soldier who had died in Afghanistan, if Sherlock's apologetic compliments were anything to go by, and didn't worry for a moment about what Mary thought when he ignored her for Sherlock, what Molly thought when Sherlock didn't look in her direction when Sherlock went to congratulate him, or what his mother thought when his father told her she couldn't go, what his father thought when he decided not to go, or what his sister thought as she took another shot of alcohol.
All he could think of was the one person not hiding anything, the one person who came and watched, the one person who was proud and happy for him, and he couldn't help but only care about Sherlock and smile and be proud of himself and everything his friend encouraged him to achieve.