SPOILER ALERTS! This story came out of thoughts I had about John and Sherlock's friendship, and how John potentially getting married might affect both men. This is inspired both by ACD!canon (SIGN), and by Sherlock S3 casting, plot, and set spoilers.
Warnings for discussion of drug use, kidnapping, murder.
"It's not too late to back out."
John stands before the wood-framed mirror and adjusts his silver tiepin, smoothing out the wrinkles in the ivory fabric of his tie. "What?" he asks, caught off-guard by the question.
"To back out of the wedding." Sherlock paces behind John in the church's small side office, where he and John wait before the ceremony. Until now, Sherlock has been silent, his hands struck in his usual thinking pose. "I can have one of Mycroft's cars here in five minutes. You know he's watching over the proceedings, just as a matter of course."
John watches Sherlock in the mirror, tracing his pendulum reflection. John shifts his attention from his tie to his silver cufflinks, borrowed from Sherlock's stash of unwanted gifts from thankful clients, making sure they're in place. "Is this your way of asking me if I really want to go through with this? It is a little late, after all, considering that we're at the church. And dressed. And the wedding being only twenty minutes away."
"Isn't that part of my duties as your best man?" Sherlock asks. He flicks his hand in time to the questions. "To make sure you're of sound mind and body before you wed? Isn't that what a good friend does?"
John chuckles, straightening his cuffs for the twelfth time that day, picking off invisible bits of lint from his morning coat. "I'm not incapacitated or under the influence of psychotropic substances. I think I'm sound enough to fill out a will, or get a tattoo, or recite my wedding vows." He grins. "But I appreciate the sentiment."
Sherlock finally stops mid-stride, and stands behind John, his near-twin in oatmeal waistcoat, black morning coat, boutonniere in ivory and purple. Sherlock's gaze narrows, sharp enough to cut through glass, and John finds himself locked by that piercing, probing stare. "So do you?"
"Do I what?"
"Want to go through with this?"
John's face hardens, the bridge of his nose rumpling in consternation. He turns around to face Sherlock, his shoulders tensing and fist flexing. "All right. What's wrong? You haven't discovered something terrible about Mary, have you? That she's some sort of Russian spy, or secret sniper, or keeps alligators in her basement or some such nonsense. Spill it."
Sherlock shakes his head. "No, no, nothing of the sort. I just wanted to make sure you're secure in your decision."
John takes a deep, cleansing breath. "Yes, I am." The smells of fresh roses, rich wood, and fine fabric fill his body, relaxing it once more. "As sure as I've ever been."
Sherlock's face twitches, his lips turning down, his voice becoming unusually small and delicate, like thin, fragile glass. "You want this? Truly?"
John sighs. "Yes, I do. Look, what is this all about, really?" He frowns, blinks in confusion. "Why are you worried all of a sudden about me marrying Mary? You seemed fine with it all this time. Surprisingly so, in fact," John adds.
Sherlock glances away from John for a moment, his body shifting back and forth in a slight swivel, as if unsure where to land. The crystal of his voice is suddenly leaden, blackened. "This is the moment when it all changes. You and me. You—" he waves his hand between the two of them, "leaving me."
The wrinkles in John's forehead furrow even more. "Sherlock—" he starts, gasping a little, unsettled by Sherlock's sudden seriousness, "I'm not going anywhere. I'm not dying, I'm not moving across the world. I'm getting married!" He laughs a little at the end of it, half in comfort, half in exasperation.
"It amounts to the same thing," Sherlock says, pointedly. "You'll move out of the flat, and I'll be alone except for Mrs. Hudson and the skull and my sock drawer. You won't help me with my cases anymore because you'll be too caught up in wedded bliss." He spits out the last two words as if they were doused in lemon juice.
John stops breathing for a moment, his body as still as a mannequin in his finery, his mind swirling. "Why—why on earth would you think I wouldn't want to be part of your life anymore? Have you been worried about this all this time? Why didn't you come to me sooner? We could have talked about this."
"Because," Sherlock starts, his body still teetering on some invisible edge, "after everything I've done, I didn't want to burden you with my trivial feelings on the matter. I thought I could ignore this feeling, but nothing I did changed it. Not on Mary—she's got some cleverness about her—but on marriage. It happens all the time—people pair off into hateful little groups and go off to new worlds and leave you alone. It's dull and insipid and horrifying." Sherlock finally breaks into motion again and throws himself into a nearby chair, half-slouching in the leather wingback. He glances at the walls, at the carpet, anywhere but at John's face. His arms are crossed over his chest, and the tip of his right shoe jiggles ever so slightly. "Horrifying," he says, and the sound is bitter with age.
John stares at Sherlock for several long moments, letting himself absorb Sherlock's words. He feels something else underneath this verbal rubble, feels it welling up through Sherlock's body, threatening to flood the room. He turns and sits in the chair opposite Sherlock, easing back into the creaking wood. The space between them is small, their feet almost touching in the center. "Sherlock," he says, softly, the sound of doves lingering in the distance, "Is this about your parents? Or Mycroft, maybe? Because I don't think it's entirely about me."
Sherlock sighs, meets John's gaze for a flickering moment, runs his hand through his hair, as if shaking out loose memories. When Sherlock begins to speak, it is the quietest John has ever heard him. "When I was ten, Mycroft left for university. He was the only person who understood me as I truly was. Accepted me. Not like our parents, or my tutors. When he left, it was…difficult. Lonely. Unbearably so." As John listens, he sees not his grown friend sitting before him, but a thin, gangly boy, clever eyes turning brittle with loneliness. "I didn't understand why I couldn't go with him. I was bright enough, clever enough to keep up with him. I never forgave him for leaving. And the loneliness never dissipated." He pauses, bites his lip. "Not until I found cocaine at university."
John's heart turns to steel, and his hands ball into hard fists on the armrests. "You're not going to relapse if I leave. You cannot hold that over my head. I'm not going to let you use again, but I'm not going to let you threaten me with using again if I leave."
Sherlock sighs, rolls his eyes, straightening his body in the chair. "No, I'm not going to relapse. I have more control now. And a better support system. Besides, Lestrade would never give me a case again if he found out," he says, waving his hand away. "I would not want to—" and his gaze flicks to John, focusing sharp and earnest, "disappoint anyone. But it would be difficult without you. You've always followed me, wherever I've gone, even when I didn't want you to or need you to. I'm used to being the one who leaves. I never thought you would leave me. I feel like I'm losing you again."
John's fists slowly unfurl, and he lets out a long, low breath. He leans forward in his chair, resting his forearms on his knees, his open hands reaching out between them. "I'm not going to leave you. Never. You are always, always going to be my best friend. No matter where our lives take us." He reaches out, tentatively, his hand almost touching Sherlock's leg. "Do you really think I'd let you go now? After praying for three years to see you again, just for a moment? Do you seriously think I'd abandon one of the most important people in my life?"
"But why get married at all?" Sherlock cries, rising again, away from John's almost-touch. He resumes his pacing, like a wild panther trapped in a tiny cage. "Why can't we just go on as it is now? You're happy at Baker Street with me and with her, why can't we live together?" He stops in the center of the room, glaring at John. "Why do you have to leave me?"
"I'm not going to stop being your friend just because I'm getting married!" John says. "It doesn't mean I care for you any less." He rubs his hand over his face, then interlaces his fingers, as if trying to contain the problem in his hands. "It's a bit cramped, the three of us in that tiny space. I never expected that my dead flatmate would come back and want his old room again." Both he and Sherlock snort wryly at this. "At the very least, Mary wants an actually usable kitchen, and room for her art studio, and I need a place for my writing. It's been wonderful to spend time together, the three of us. I love that you and Mary get along. But Mary and I need space for the two of us." When Sherlock still doesn't relax, John turns to simple soothing. "We're not going to be that far away. You'll still be able to get to me in a taxi in five minutes. You'll still be able to pester me wherever I go with your bloody texts. I'm not going to come across town to fetch your mobile out of your pocket for you every time you want it, but when you need me, I'll be there for you."
Sherlock swallows, coughs. John can see the twin energies of tension and release rippling through Sherlock's body like opposite, explosive polarities. "John—" he starts, "you have to understand—it's difficult for me to trust anyone. To believe that anyone would want to support me. Even after everything you and Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson and Molly have done for me."
"Because of you and Mycroft?" John asks, quietly.
Sherlock nods, breathes deep. "And because of what happened...before. Lestrade arresting me, thinking I kidnapped those children. I know his hands were tied, but…still. And for a long time..." Sherlock's hands tighten at his sides, as if suddenly clutching a gun or knife or bare throat. "I couldn't trust anyone. I was running for my life. All the contacts I had, even the ones personally vetted by Mycroft, I couldn't fully, completely trust. Not like you. I was afraid that they would turn on me any moment."
John's mouth opens and closes, his whole body coiling with tension, a burst of anger making the cool spring room feel hot and stifling. "You think that I'd hurt you? After everything we've been through?" He breathes sharply, blinks hard. "You mean to tell me that me leaving you for Mary is the same as someone trying to kill you in your sleep? That much of a betrayal? Are you serious?"
"That's what it feels like!" Sherlock cries, scrubbing at his hair once more. "I know it's irrational and terrible, but—" He stops again, forces his hands to his sides, looks at John. "I wanted you so much when I was gone. I wanted to return to you, to our life together, the way it was before I left." He pauses. Takes a deep breath. "I know you're happy with Mary. I see it in the way you walk, smooth and solid; and the way your eyes do that strange crinkling when you smile—you have two new laugh lines already from her presence. She's good for you, John"—and Sherlock's words make John's own breath catch in his throat—"better than I could possibly be. I wish I could have had you to myself for a little while longer." He turns away from John, staring out of the bank of colored glass windows in the office, running floor to ceiling. "I don't begrudge you your happiness," Sherlock finally says. "I begrudge my own unhappiness."
John stares after Sherlock, at his slightly hunched back, his shaking shoulder blades. John closes his eyes and simply breathes, his anger draining from him, the new emptiness replaced by visions of a young boy looking out from the windows of a great pile after a brother who would not come home, of a young man filling his veins with the companionship of seven percent solution, of a dear friend looking at his friend disappear in the arms of another. He opens his eyes again, sees Sherlock still quivering in the center of the room. Behind Sherlock, the windows overlook one of the church's gardens. The spring day is iridescent, glowing, the sky and horizon and earth unified by the golden glass, warm as honey. John rises, and goes to Sherlock's barely trembling form, standing beside him. Sherlock does not move, only lets out a soft, weary sigh. "From the moment I laid eyes on you," John begins, quietly, "I knew I was supposed to be by your side. I knew I needed you in my life. I was dead when I met you, Sherlock. I was like some damned flat battery, and you were a spark. A bloody firework." John lightly taps the center of his own chest, and Sherlock's eyes follow it. "You know that jolt of electricity that keeps your heart beating? That's what you were to me then. You brought me back to life. And that's what Mary was to me, after you died. I was shattered. I didn't know who I was anymore, after being with you for so long. She helped me find myself again, just as you did." John smiles, laughs a little. "The first time I saw her, I thought of sunflowers. Golden and warm, always turning towards the sun, shining with so much light. When I was with her, I felt like I could be whole again. Solid. Not like a pile of wreckage floating around. When I'm with her, I remember that I can be whole and strong and rooted and growing. She's my earth." Slowly, John slips his left hand into Sherlock's right, holds it lightly. Sherlock finally looks at John, his full lips pressed together tightly, his glasz eyes shimmering wetly. "And when I'm with you, I remember that I can run and fight and fly across rooftops. You're my sky." He runs his thumb over the fragile bones in Sherlock's wrist, slow and steady, as if soothing a lost, helpless creature. "I need you both to make my world complete."
Sherlock quirks a soft, delicate smile. "Is that the kind of poetic drivel you used to woo Mary?" he asks, his voice thick, breaking slightly. "I thought you left that behind with your previous girlfriends."
John smacks him playfully on the arm, chuckles. "Mary happens to like my poetry. She said she liked a man who was good with words."
"'Good' is a relative term, of course," Sherlock says.
"Don't you insult my fiancée's taste in poetry," John says, mockingly. "And don't forget, before you call my poetry rubbish again, that my writing was good enough to make you famous. I still have plenty of cases to add to the blog."
Sherlock grimaces. "Does this mean you'll start describing our cases in iambic pentameter?"
John grins fiercely. "Only if you ask me to, Sherlock." They pause for a moment, then burst into laughter, dark and deep tangling with light and bubbling. They lean into each other, holding each other up as they giggle, still clasping each other's hand. As the mirth drains from their bodies, John feels Sherlock's warmth seeping through his skin, the thumping of Sherlock's wild, fragile heart. John looks up at Sherlock and squeezes his hand. "I love you, Sherlock. Nothing will ever change what you did for me, or what you are to me, or what you will be. You're a once-in-a-lifetime man, and Mary's a once-in-a-lifetime woman. I'm glad I can have the two of you in my life together."
Sherlock squeezes John's hand back, traces of joy still lingering around his mouth. "I care for you, too, John. You have been a fixture in my life for so long." His eyes go briefly dark and distant. "I can't imagine life without you again."
"Neither can I," John whispers, the last bit of hollow grief leaving his body. "And I know how much you care. I knew it when you saved me and Mrs. Hudson and Lestrade. I knew it when you didn't try to run off Mary, like you did to every other woman in my life. I knew it when you agreed to be my best man. I've always known."
Sherlock swallows, blinks away a sudden wash of tears. "Thank you, John," he says, matching John's steady, strong gaze. After a moment, Sherlock clears his throat, runs his free hand through his hair, straightening the unruly curls. "I'll try not to bother you with the work in future," he says. John cocks his head in disbelief, raises an eyebrow. "Not too much." Another pause. "At least not during dinner."
"Definitely not during dinner," John says. "You know I need to eat. Shall we resurrect the rating system again? We got out of that habit for a bit. If you call me during dinner, or in the middle of the night, or during any date with me and Mary, it better not be for anything below an eight," John says, jokingly firm.
Sherlock narrows his eyes. "Seven."
"Seven-point-five."
"Done," Sherlock says, his grin wicked and triumphant.
"And not during sex," John adds, emphatically. "Unless you're dying or kidnapped, if you call while we're having sex, I will ignore you. No matter how many texts you send."
"But what if—"
"Not. Negotiable."
Sherlock sighs. "Fine." John rolls his eyes one more time, shaking his head, chuckling.
A soft knock comes at the door, and John beckons in the person: a dark-skinned woman sporting a sharp purple dress, black twist outs, and an official-looking clipboard; the church's event coordinator. "John," she says, "it's time."
"Thanks, Joanna," John says. "Be there in a tick." She dips out of the room again, closing the door behind her. John turns to Sherlock, his blue eyes glinting like the spring sky. "Ready?"
Sherlock's smile is as wide and true as the horizon. "Ready," he says, squeezing John's warm, solid hand for one more moment, then, carefully, tenderly, letting go.
Thanks to Mirith Griffin for being my beta goddess, dialogue master (thank you for some of John's dialogue) and dear, dear, dear friend. This story is for her, with my deepest, deepest thanks.
The title is taken from Emily Dickinson's "After a great pain, a formal feeling comes" (thanks to Mirith for this poem). The flat battery line is a reference to a Moffat/Gatiss interview in which they describe post-Afghanistan, pre-Sherlock John as a drained battery (alas, I cannot find the link to this). The "fixture in my life" line is a reference to ACD's "His Last Bow." This was written under the influence of Stevie Wonder's "Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)."
And thanks to you for reading. Comments welcome.