Serviettes

Sherlock stared intently at the YouTube video scrolling across the screen. This was the third time that he'd watched it - he liked to watch important YouTube videos at least twice and three times if he was aiming for perfection - because things like folding napkins for serviettes were things that he had never tried to accomplish in real life. And this had to be perfect. It was John's wedding.

He licked his lips in intense concentration as he reached for the pile of napkins sitting on his desk.

Technically, it didn't have to be perfect. He knew that. John didn't even care about how the napkins were placed on the table, much less what they were shaped like. But Mary would like it. And Mary had to like it, because if Mary liked it, John would like it.

And Sherlock was always trying to please John.

Call him sentimental - and he did call himself that nowadays (so did Mycroft, for the record) - but it mattered what John thought or felt. It always had. He wouldn't have admitted it two years ago, but things were different now. John was getting married.

John didn't care about the wedding. John would have been intent to go to city hall or a private church or even go off to Vegas or some stupid place like that. He didn't care about the activity behind it, only the sentiment. Men and weddings... They didn't really click.

But women... Women and weddings were two totally different things. Mary wanted a beautiful wedding. She wanted the long, flowing dress and her friends and John's family and Sherlock to be sitting there on John's opposite side. She wanted good food and wonderful wine and flowers and music and...

Serviettes.

There had to be serviettes.

Sherlock carefully folded each side of the napkin, eyes narrowing as he took care not to rip the flimsy fabric. It would be a different medium at the wedding, but he didn't have 'wedding napkins' at his flat right now. That would take another week or so.

The point was... making Mary happy, Sherlock supposed. He made her happy, which, by extension, made John happy, and making John happy made Sherlock happy. It was a chain effect, quite literally, of emotion. It would be horribly destructive if something happened to one or more of them; Sherlock, in a whim of fancy, hoped that nothing bad did ever befall them. It would hurt not only John or Mary, but himself as well.

He was doing kind of bad with the emotions lately. Meaning: he was actively participating in feeling emotion.

He was... terrified.

He wouldn't admit it; of course he wouldn't. John and Mary had plenty of things to worry about without worrying about Sherlock's state of mind. He was the only one who needed to worry about his state of mind, so, as usual, he kept most of his inner musings where they belonged: on the inside.

He did have them, though, feelings.

He just wanted the wedding over before the whole thought of the wedding could drive him up a wall... or worse, to insanity.

Sherlock tilted his head and leaned back to look at his swan from more of a distance, tweaking its beak slightly for a desired effect.

"Not terribly difficult," he mused, licking his lips and reaching for his coffee only to find it'd gone cold. "Ugh."

He stood and traipsed into the kitchen, dumping the cold and pouring himself a hot cup. He stood there for a moment, looking at the kitchen chair where John had sat previously and asked him to be his best man. Best man.

He was his... best friend.

Sherlock was... so surprised. Or maybe shocked had been the better word, because, as it turned, he hadn't said a word out loud after John had asked him, just stood and stared at him. All these different thoughts and emotions had been shooting through his head but he had been... gobsmacked. It was like he'd been walking and John had built a brick wall in front of him and Sherlock had walked smack into it. He was... emotional. In his mind, of course. He didn't show it out loud, but John had said something about the look on his face had pretty much shown his surprise.

Best friend. He was no one's best friend. He was his own best friend. But John... had said that he was his best friend.

Sherlock shook his head slightly and took another drink of his coffee, heading back to the sitting room. He resumed his seat and moved the swan aside, reaching for another napkin. Perfection could only be succeeded through repetition... and he only had one chance to get this wedding right. So, he had to practice beforehand.

And they definitely would need serviettes.

Sherlock set his mug down and returned to folding the semi-absorbent pieces of tissue, eyes flicking to the finished swan periodically.

This would be perfect. Because it had to be. He didn't have another alternative. Failure was not an option. And the sooner that he got this over with, the sooner he could stop wrestling with how long it would take before John would leave him forever.

If this was his best friend's going-away party, Sherlock was going to make his wedding the best present ever.

Right, then. Into battle.

Oh, there's going to be a lot of fanfiction for this episode. I loved it. It's battling with tRF for my favourite episode... because I love the new emotional-type Sherlock. And the hug. And the drinkies. But we'll get to that in other fanfiction. :p So, tried to capture what may have been going through Sherlock's head for the wedding. It's obviously way more complex than this, but for the sake of time and management, this is just a glimpse into that gorgeous man's mind.

I do not own Sherlock. (Or YouTube, as a given.) Your opinions are always appreciated! Thank you. :)