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Breathe.
This doesn’t happen. Only in films, anyway. Only for dramatic effect and advancing the plot and….it all works out in the end.
Speak now or forever hold your peace.
Tradition. Formality. A moment’s pause, awkward smiles, than onward.
Breathe, John.
Molly was wearing yellow. She had a ribbon in her hair, pulled back from her face.
Mrs. Hudson in black with an enormous hat. Lestrade in a suit and tie, fresh haircut and shave. Sherlock beside John, meticulously groomed, on his absolute best behavior.
All of them facing away, bodies twisted to look behind them at the man – thin, neat goatee, frameless glasses, receding hairline – who had stood, at the minister’s invitation, to quietly announce that Mary Morstan could not possibly marry John Watson as she was, in fact, already married.
The silence in the church roared in his ears as his head turned slowly from this odd intruder to his wife-to-be.
Mary, resplendent, bridal, radiant in the diffused coloured light pouring in through the stained glass windows.
Mary, shocked, indignant, frightened.
Angry.
Livid.
Breathe.
He sucks in a breath.
He’s alone. Wonderfully, horribly alone. Ten minutes with Mary to confirm what he already knew by the look on her face. A row of epic proportions with Sherlock, who’d not known. I knew she wasn’t who she claimed to be. But people have reasons for hiding, John. Good reasons.
Of course he’d known. He fucking well knew everything – even his almost-wife’s real name, and that she was from Connecticut, not London, and has a seventeen-year old daughter who lives with her father and will have nothing to do with her now. And if Sherlock hadn’t known – he should have.
I wanted you to be happy. You were happy with her. You wanted her. I wanted you to have that. To keep that.
Feeble. Weak. Ridiculous. A farce as bad as the two years he’d spent mourning a very-much-alive Sherlock. Asking for a miracle. Back propped against that cold black marble watching the seasons creep in and fade out.
He wants to go home.
(He has no home.)
His life is a lie, in shambles. Mary is a liar.
Liar … liar … liar.
Sherlock should have known.
Mary hasn’t apologised. Mary is irate. At him. At Sherlock. At the man in the back of the church she refuses to name who ruined everything. At the world at large. She wants to go on with the ceremony – eat and drink and toast and dance and pretend and sort it all out later. Just a piece of paper. Meaningless, really, in the grand scheme of things.
No. He’s been deceived before. Lied to. He won’t willingly fall down that rabbit hole again.
His shoes are ill-fitting, his collar too tight. He slips out a back door and walks twelve blocks before hailing a cab. He stayed with Sherlock the night before, so to 221B he goes. No one will be there; he’ll change into something comfortable and get the hell out of London.
Or have a sulk. Undo Sherlock’s sock index in a passive aggressive pique, leave the milk to spoil on the counter, steal the skull and keep it in his duffle for those lonely nights when the tellie isn’t company enough.
Destroy something. Hurt someone.
Hurt himself.
Lied to, betrayed, again. More the fool, he. More the fool.
Yet, in his heart of hearts, he knows it isn’t fair to let the hurt bleed through Mary into Sherlock. They’re past that – they’ve put Sherlock’s deception behind them. Through the bonfire when he’d nearly lost his life, the carriage when they’d both come within a hair’s breadth of oblivion, Sherlock had been there, been present, been impossibly helpful. Folding those ridiculous swans. Interviewing (interrogating) members of the wedding party. Teaching John to waltz.
Fuck.
He needs a drink. Something. To calm him down. To stop the shaking. To kick his heart back into the steady rhythm it had finally found again.
After Mary said yes.
(After Sherlock came back from the dead.)
The flat is quiet for all of five minutes – long enough for him to pour a good measure of scotch and drop into his chair and kick off his ill-fitting shoes and loosen the tie Sherlock had so carefully knotted for him that morning. (Long fingers, deft, grazing the back of his neck, brushing invisible lint from the shoulder of his coat.) Long enough for him to close his eyes and will away the heartache. Long enough to begin to feel – but not long enough (never long enough) to understand.
He doesn’t hear the footsteps on the stair, but he hears the door open, the unmistakable sound of Sherlock’s tread on the floor. He’s too drained to care – either way - that he’s no longer alone.
Mercifully, Sherlock doesn’t say a thing. Doesn’t approach him, or speak to him, not at first. He disappears into his bedroom and comes out some minutes later, barefoot, comfortable in pajama bottoms and his dressing gown. John watches him out of the corner of his eye, sees him slip into the kitchen, stop at the table to sort through the post that’s surely been piled there for days.
He hears Sherlock fumbling around in the kitchen, running water, filling the kettle. He doesn’t want tea – he wants scotch. He has no desire for clarity of mind. He needs the befuddled blindness alcohol offers, and is profoundly grateful when, five minutes later, Sherlock enters the room with a mug of tea in one hand and the bottle of scotch in the other. He refills John’s glass without comment, then places the bottle on the table and settles into his chair across from John, cradling the warm mug in his hands and blowing gently across the surface of the tea to cool it. He is the sea of tranquility on the jagged surface of the moon and slides into the maelstrom of John’s thoughts with hardly a ripple.
He doesn’t say anything, just sips his tea and stares into his cup, not looking at John, not checking his mobile, not staring at the ceiling or shooting holes in the wall or balancing his laptop on one knee. John works at the scotch, and stares at Sherlock, and formulates a thousand questions but doesn’t voice a one.
Finally, Sherlock sighs and puts down his mug, then reaches into his dressing gown pocket, extracts a stack of index cards and a pencil, and smooths the cards out on his leg. He shuffles through the cards, jotting down notes, crossing things out, frowning, smiling. Finally, he puts down the pencil and looks up at John.
“I didn’t get to give my speech,” he says.
John nearly chokes. He sputters around the mouthful of scotch that was halfway down his throat when Sherlock made the pronouncement.
Can Sherlock really be this dense?
“Your best man speech,” John says. He blinks, as if this manifestation of Sherlock is somewhat ethereal and will dissipate if he looks away.
Sherlock gives him a half smile that rises from his heart into his eyes. “Right.” He looks at John hopefully. “I thought I’d do it now, then.”
It is certainly not what John thought might be the first thing from Sherlock’s mouth following the revelations at the church.
“You thought you’d do your best man speech now.” John can’t even be angry anymore. There are no words to describe everything that is wrong with Sherlock’s idea. “Your wedding speech.” He stares hard at Sherlock. “You may have noticed, great consulting detective that you are, that we didn’t exactly have a wedding.”
If he sounds bitter, he deserves to be.
“Right.” Sherlock smooths the top card. “It holds up, though. Even without a bride.”
John smiles sardonically and tosses down the remainder of the scotch. He sighs, blinks again. Sherlock is still there, waiting, expectant. “All right.” He waves his hand at him. “Go on, then.”
Sherlock’s smile now is more rehearsed than genuine. He takes up his cards, stands, then clears his throat.
“Ladies and gentleman, family and friends, and others.”
“Just me here, Sherlock.”
Sherlock drops a card and John watches it float to the floor. He gives John an apologetic grin. “I suppose we can skip the telegrams?”
John jerks his head in a sharp nod. “Please.”
“They’re not actually telegrams,” Sherlock says.
John nods. “I realise that,” he says. Maybe it’s the scotch, or maybe it’s the stress, or maybe it’s Sherlock being Sherlock, but he suddenly very much wants to hear the speech Sherlock would have given.
Sherlock clears his throat again. He smiles at John, raises his hand to point to him. “My friend, John Watson.” His eyes drop back to the card, then he looks up again, holds John’s gaze. “John.”
John stares at him. There is an intimacy in his name on Sherlock’s tongue he’d never before realised. He is suddenly immensely happy that Sherlock isn’t addressing his wedding guests.
Sherlock seems to be waiting for a signal from John to continue. John nods.
“Yep. That’s me.” He’s slurring his words, just a bit. “Go on.”
“Right.” Sherlock checks his cards, then raises his eyes, speaking confidently. “When John first broached the subject of being best man, I was confused. I confess at first I didn’t realise he was asking me. When finally I understood, I expressed to him that I was both flattered and surprised. I explained to him that I’d never expected this request and I was a little daunted in the face of it. I nonetheless promised that I would do my very best to accomplish a task which was, for me, as demanding and difficult as any I had ever contemplated. Additionally, I thanked him for the trust he’d placed in me.”
John is shaking his head.
“Actually, I don’t remember that part,” he says, speaking up when Sherlock pauses to check his cards again.
He pours himself another measure of scotch as Sherlock continues through some self-deprecating jokes, and relaxes back into his chair as his best man proceeds to insult the vicar, the bridesmaids, John’s mental acuity, and the institution of marriage itself.
And personally, right about now, he’s fine with that. The institution of marriage isn’t doing much for him at the moment, and he isn’t feeling very keen on vicars who poke at sleeping dragons and ask if anyone has any objections.
“The point I’m trying to make,” continues Sherlock, raising his voice a notch as if cognizant that John’s thoughts are wandering, “is that I am the most unpleasant, rude, ignorant and all-around obnoxious arsehole that anyone could possibly have the misfortune to meet. I am dismissive of the virtuous, unaware of the beautiful, and uncomprehending in the face of the happy. So if I didn’t understand I was being asked to be best man, it is because I never expected to be anybody’s best friend.”
John’s thoughts aren’t wandering now. He is looking at Sherlock, the still-full glass wedged between his thigh and the arm of the chair. He swallows the lump in his throat as it rises, watching Sherlock closely as he reads from the card.
“Certainly not the best friend of the bravest and kindest and wisest human being I have ever had the good fortune of knowing.”
The words are familiar. You were the best and wisest man that I have ever known. He cannot help but smile at Sherlock borrowing them for such an occasion.
Sherlock pauses, presses his lips together, and raises his eyes. “I had to change this next part quite a bit, considering,” he says. “Though I suspect I could leave it – you can insert another name along with mine if you’d rather have it that way.
John shakes his head slowly. He can only imagine what’s to come.
Sherlock smiles, and there is sadness in his eyes, a sadness that cuts into John, who should be hoarding all the sadness for himself.
“John,” says Sherlock, no longer reading from the card. The sincerity in his voice is almost alarming. “I am a ridiculous man, redeemed only by the warmth and constancy of your friendship. I do not deserve your friendship and love. You have endured war, and injury, and tragic loss, so know this – right now you sit before the man you have saved – the man who…” He stumbles, glances down at the card and stares at it for a long time while John, in turn, stares at him, finding it very difficult to keep on breathing.
Sherlock looks up. “The man who…who loves you most in all this world.” He plunges on as John’s mouth opens, as he continues to stare at this man who cannot possibly be Sherlock. He knows what Sherlock must have written – the two people who love you most in all this world. And he realises the enormity of it, how the alteration changes the message, and makes it so much more difficult to voice.
Yet voice it he did.
“And I will never again let you down, and we have a lifetime ahead for me to prove that.”
John blinks. Bites his bottom lip as he blinks some more, tears threatening to spill out and over. He doesn’t cry, never cries, is not overtly emotional. He knows, now, what this speech might have sounded like had there been a wedding today. Is incredulous that Sherlock - his Sherlock – was prepared to make that speech before a crowd of people.
Is just as incredulous that Sherlock has made this altered version in front of him alone.
Sherlock Holmes is not the man John always thought he was, and suddenly, John knows he himself is not either. Sherlock, his best friend, is no more a sociopath than Greg Lestrade is a serial killer, than Mrs. Hudson is a batty housewife.
“I’m sorry, John. Truly sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t dig deeper, that I didn’t voice what I discovered. I erred because I know you love her – and I only wanted you to be happy.”
John is pulling himself to his feet, extracting himself from the chair. He is unsteady, but determined. The forgotten scotch spills into his chair. He is reminded of stag night, of almosts and might-have-beens, as he steps toward Sherlock.
“What?” Sherlock steps backward. “Did I do it wrong?”
“No, you didn’t.” He is choking. Tears are streaming down his face now. This is ridiculous. He is ridiculous. “Come here.” The words are a mournful growl as he pulls Sherlock toward him, wraps his arms around his neck, and hugs him like he’s always wanted to, though he didn’t absolutely know that until this very second.
Sherlock stands frozen, and John is crying, and hugging him, and Sherlock, underneath the genius, is only human.
Arms rise to embrace him, tentatively at first, then surely (confidently, desperately), and a voice, muffled, in his ear, asks –
“You’re crying.” Brilliant deduction. “Did I do something wrong?”
And John, who thought he would never smile again, is laughing.
He steps back from Sherlock, untangles himself from his grasp, and wants to smooth back Sherlock’s tangled curls, wants to lose himself in the most hidden recesses of Sherlock’s mind palace where the most sacred, unfathomable things are stored. He smiles. “No. You didn’t. You did everything right.”
“There’s something more,” Sherlock says as John, avoiding the scotch-soaked cushions, sinks to the floor. He pulls his knees up and drops his head back onto the chair and watches Sherlock take out his violin. “I wrote something for you. For your dance – tonight.”
“For us,” corrects John, bitterness, sorrow working their way into the simple words. He understands at once that Sherlock has composed something for them, for the first dance they would have had to launch the life that’s now on hold, perhaps not to be at all.
But Sherlock shakes his head as he lifts the instrument to his shoulder. He lifts his bow, pauses.
“For you.”
The music is, simply, a declaration of love. It is romantic, and haunting, all right and all wrong. He hears the lamentation, feels the loss. There is starlight above him, an ocean of sadness below. He moves with the melody, dances across the heavens on a carpet of stars, buoyed by the love of his life.
Who has lied to him, humiliated him. Who is not who she claims to be.
(Who has left him, deceived him. Who is not who he claims to be.)
The music ends, and the flat is quiet. John lifts a heavy hand and waves an imaginary baton.
“Again,” he demands.
Sherlock obliges, and as the violin mourns, beautiful and sad, John closes his eyes and melts back into the chair which, in a world where no one is constant, has always felt like home.