This one is pretty long, by my standards. All mistakes are my own.
Nope, don't own Sherlock. But I really, really wish I did.
He knew it was coming, but he buried it anyway, far into the recesses of his mind palace. Far away from the room that emitted a steady golden glow from underneath the door. That room was filled with John's chair, a drawer for John's gun, walls lined with medical texts, and words like warmth and oatmeal sweaters (horrific, soft, endearing) and earl grey and honey. It was filled with the scent of wool and soap and tea and the sharp, tight breath of adrenaline, and the bubble of laughter that constrains the chest.
No, this dark, velvet box was banished to the highest possible corner. When Sherlock saw it, the image was raced to the roof where Jim Moriarty still lay bleeding, sightless eyes and slack lips, and flung over the edge into nothingness. Not deleted, no. Because something like that could catch him by surprise, and suffocate his heart all over again. Instead it landed far away, somewhere in the twisting streets, right in the back of his mind. Not recalled until mentioned.
Of course, John has to bring it up anyway. He's smiling like an idiot, "I'm going to ask her." Sherlock doesn't bother to ask what the question is. But John seems nervous, so Sherlock reassures him, "She'll say yes."
It is almost worth the smile that shines across John's face, and he stores it with the other smiles, in the room with the yellow-brown door (for Afghanistan and the color of the sweater that smells the most like John) and he feels like a thief because that smile is not really for him.
Later, when he emerges from rooms labeled library and morgue that take up echoing spaces in his palace, the living room is dark. The flat is unnaturally silent and for less than a second, Sherlock wonders where John has got to at this time of night. But reality slaps him, leaving his eyes stinging, and he swallows his insides over and over again because John shares a flat with his girlfriend now, he doesn't need Sherlock and the chaos of 221b anymore.
John's new dwelling lives in the twists of the regrettably, must be remembered corridor. The door is red, like the color of slick blood. The sight is nauseating coupled with the stench of baked goods emanating from Mycroft's locked door. Those thoughts have a habit of escaping and running rampage.
Inside Mary's flat (John does not belong to her and she does not belong to John in Sherlock's mind, he has yet to merge his collection of John, with this new room) exists clear surfaces and countertops wiped clean. The smell of home cooked food makes him want to hit something.
He does not visit that corridor very often. But sometimes he has to, because in the back of John's room exists a small wooden door, unpainted, that has the word fantasies carved in rough script. The letters were originally carved in Sherlock's writing, they are now in John's.
And Sherlock makes sure that if he opens this door, he will, afterwards, be transported to that homey place that Mary and John share. Together. Sometimes it helps him forget the way he imagines John's lips could ghost across his skin.
Sherlock avoids it for as long as he can, but his mind refuses to leave that small box alone. It appears, one day, as Sherlock wraps himself in the sheets of John's bed, not John's real bed, his bed in the mind palace (hospital corners, sweat, soap). Sometimes Sherlock almost forgets that it is not real. That John has not left the other side of the bed warm, that Sherlock's skin does not hold the warm ghost of callused hands.
It appears, red, velvet, small. About the size of a hand grenade. Sherlock shudders, but flicks it open. The horrid thing is laid against a background of white (purity, sterilized, antiseptic, lab). The ring is platinum, with an elegant diamond mounted against it. Not flashy, very John.
Sherlock wants to throw up.
Sherlock's palace dissolves around him in his panic, though however long he searches their apartment -Sherlock's apartment, in the real world, he cannot find the box.
John returns briefly with the news. Sherlock acts as if he is completely disinterested, but shoots John a quick smile, over his tea (heavily sweetened, dash of milk) to show that he is happy for them. At any other time, Sherlock would have been proud of himself for his astounding performance. John leaves with his customary nagging about regular meals and sleep. Dull. It takes all Sherlock's effort to cover the fact that he is crumbling at the edges. John's blinding smile as he says her name nearly breaks Sherlock in two.
Sherlock takes all cases, any cases. Letting his mind buzz so much that all else is a blur at the edges of his consciousness. Once, he slips and his mind clears. Its for a flash of a second, but its enough to see the pity in Lestrade's eyes.
"It was the wife, the husband was gay. He was having an affair with a much younger lover. You'll find his partner at this address." He hands the DI a slip of paper, blue pen scrawled across it. "He hasn't come out yet, he has intensely homophobic parents who are supporting him through university. The wife is blackmailing him. Bring him in for questioning."
He can tell that Lestrade is beginning to speak, "Sherlock, I-"
Sherlock slams the door on his way out, cutting off the words that would have just twisted the aching that has set up permanence in his chest further.
It is after John drops by the empty apartment to personally hand the wedding invitation to him, that Sherlock caves and almost runs from the taxi to the door of Molly's flat. He rings the buzzer once and he can tell by the way her face changes that she knows. "Sherlock..." she seems at loss for words, but he pushes past her and up the stairs. He slumps on her couch, head resting in his hands, elbows digging uncomfortably into his knees. He can hear the rustle of her wedding invitation as she puts it somewhere out of his sight line. He is grateful.
She makes him tea without words, and he doesn't move until he hears the cup set on the table, and the couch indent beside him. She rests a hand on his shoulder, and he cannot hold himself together any longer. He buries his head in against her and her arms come up two wrap around him. Its an awkward angle, but Molly knows Sherlock, from months of him appearing on her doorstep, after his death, completely broken, face bloody, hair blond or red or blue and sometimes in the night, he would call out, "John." and her heart would break a little. So Molly knows and she says nothing. Sherlock clings to her, "Stupid, delusional. I thought that, perhaps, we might have had forever." It's barely a whisper, but Molly holds him tighter.
"Did you tell him?" When she asks, Sherlock goes still against her.
"No, never." When he pulls away there are no tears in his eyes and his face is devoid of emotion. He pauses at her doorway briefly, dark in his coat, eyes ringed with hours of testing sleep, "Thank you." and he sweeps out of sight. Harsh footsteps close her door with a slam.
It seems to Molly that it is only logical that a man who soars so far above the rest, should crash so very low.
The wedding is not a quiet affair. Sherlock had known it wouldn't be, with an alcoholic sister and a man who is suspected to be in love (unrequited) with the groom. Whispers weigh down the air of the old church, because even if Sherlock has done so well at hiding it, they have always shared a certain something, that tall, dark man and the groom.
The ceremony is short and sweet and everyone agrees that this is the happiest couple that they have seen, by far. The reception is full of laughter and drinking and dancing. Sherlock stands in a corner, a champagne glass light in his hand. When Molly comes over, the blankness of his expression morphs into happiness, and they make small talk for a while. It is distinctly unnerving.
John makes his way over, after Molly leaves him again, and he becomes before-Mary-Sherlock. He still has it saved on his hard drive.
"So, I'm all hitched up." John is smiling, he has been the entire night. It is engraved on his face.
"Indeed." Sherlock smirks slightly.
John sighs and leans on the wall beside Sherlock, their shoulders brushing, because even after he has pledged himself to someone else, John touches Sherlock casually, without thinking about it. At that point of contact, Sherlock burns.
"Amaze me." says John, and Sherlock does.
The minutes merge into flashes of gold (issues with his father) (difficult break up) (new lover, hasn't told her friends) and John's smile is just for him. "Brilliant." He proclaims, after each deduction, and Sherlock glows.
Except a microphone says, "And here is a dance for the new, happy couple!" And when John flashes a quick smile at Sherlock, it is only half apologetic.
"Duty calls," He laughs, and Sherlock imitates it. But he is not laughing, he is choking, drowning.
Later, in the dark of his apartment (It stopped being theirs the moment John ran to tell him, "You were right, she said yes." Never before had Sherlock wished to be wrong.) he slumps against the sofa. His phone buzzes, and without checking the message, he types, YES. Mycroft will have a new flat for him by morning. But not a flatshare, never a flatshare.
His mind palace is still the same, only when he opens John's room, it is emptier than before, smaller and when he flings open Mary-and-John's door, there are John's words. And his morning dress, tailored and handsome, perhaps the only thing he owns that fits him properly. His own mind is pulling John away from him. And the room stinks of happiness (home cooked food, clean, bright) is that what John needed? Instead of their dark flat, greasy take out and papers strewn across all available surfaces.
And Sherlock laughs at himself, because laughter is happiness (choking, drowning).