Sherlock Holmes, Nervous

Sherlock paced irritably around his bedroom, one wall to the other.

Best man. How was he supposed to be John's best man? How could John even ask him to be his best man? He knew how he was with the public. He knew how he was with social conventions. He had read that blog that John had wrote about that birthday message. It sounded horribly insensitive but it was horribly true.

He couldn't handle social settings. He couldn't handle normal things. He just couldn't manage. It was real people things, weddings, speeches. He was not a part of it. He could not be a part of it. How was he supposed to cope?

It wasn't like he experienced glossophobia... okay, maybe that was a lie. He hated talking in front of a crowd of people. A room with three or four people to lay intelligence to his deductions was fine, but it was different. He knew his deductions; he trusted what he was saying. When it came to sentiment and... whatever else he had to put in a best man speech, he was clueless. He was as reliable as any common idiot when it came down to things like this. He didn't want to know how to give a good speech. He didn't care.

But, it was John. He had to do it for John, didn't he? After everything he had done to John in the past couple of years, he was obligated to do this now, wasn't he?

Sherlock licked his lips and pivoted on his heel, again creating a circuit around the room.

Even the thought of giving a speech at John's wedding made his stomach turn. Okay, maybe there was more than a little something in the idea that he had glossophobia. He'd never really had much experience with public speaking. When he was in front of a room full of people, usually someone else was doing the talking. Even in police conferences where he took the brunt of having solved a particularly difficult case, he stood there. He wasn't obligated to speak, wasn't even obligated to look interested. He could disappear into his mind palace without his gaze ever wavering from a spot on the wall while the phototags got their pictures and Scotland Yard got their buzz.

But talking? Sherlock couldn't talk. The only thing he talked about was cases. Death. Murder. Experiments. Idiots.

Oh, God.

Sherlock turned again, pacing back towards the wardrobe.

What did he even say at a wedding? A best man speech? He talked about John, he guessed. About John and... Mary? But he didn't know Mary. Or was the... maid of honour doing that? That was probably logical. So, John. He had to talk about John. He could talk about John, he supposed. He wished he was talking to John. He could pretend. What was it that they had always been told in school? Pretend that the audience was naked? How did that even help? Teaching young school-children to picture that they were standing in front of a crowd of naked people? What were the teachers doing, preparing them to join a nudist colony?

But John... Sherlock could talk about John. Right? He could, right? How difficult could it be? John was... John was... John.

Sherlock blew out a breath, stopping to press his fingers against his temples. He was drawing up a blank in the comforts of his own bedroom. He would freeze in the face of several hundred people staring him down at the reception. This was going to be a disaster.

He quickly worked out the likelihood of possible scenarios. There were seven likely scenarios, with four being the most likely: he would freeze, he would throw up, pass out, or utterly devastate John with how horrible it would be. Less likely would be walking out or skipping the reception, even more less likely, managing to pull it off. There was only one circumstance that was any good but the odds were so very against him. Likely, he would just ruin the entire wedding reception.

Thinking like that did very little for his nerves.

Sherlock took a few deep breaths and let them out slowly, flopping face-first onto his bed.

"This is going to be a disaster," he muttered into his pillow.

For all of the things he had to worry about, this had just jumped to the top of his list and one thing was for sure: being nervous was not something that he enjoyed. At all.

So, I haven't watched The Sign of Three - obviously. This is my pre-imagination of how Sherlock will take the idea of being John's best man. All I've got to go on is the terrified look on Sherlock's face in the trailer for this episode. I think it's adorable. :p

Super excited for this episode, because of the boys being drunk and spoilers. Because I ran into a potential huge spoiler last night, got super excited again, and yeah. I'm excited. So please don't spoil it for me. ;)

I do not own Sherlock. Thank you!