Disclaimer: Don't own, wish I did

"If you'd all join me in a toast. To John and Mary, I deduce that your marriage will be a happy one."

A ripple of laughter ran around the room at the end of Lestrade's impromptu speech and the fond reference to a certain consulting detective, as the guests raised their glasses to the newly wed couple. Well, all the guests except Sherlock Holmes, who sat scowling like a sullen child in the corner.

John had been disappointed in Sherlock's petulant response to his engagement, seeing how they were supposed to be best friends. But then he had to remind himself once more that this was Sherlock Holmes. Emotion and especially selfless emotion, was a rarity in him and usually something only John could detect. Also, he had no time for sentiment and just didn't understand why two people would want to spend their lives together in boring domesticity. He'd asked John why he'd want to give up the life he had now and tie himself to someone who'd put restrictions on him. John had tried to explain the finer points of wanting marriage and maybe a family, just someone to share his day with who might listen to him and be considerate to his needs.

"Don't I do that?" Sherlock had asked, with genuine confusion.

"Well, no, you don't. You go for hours, sometimes days, hardly paying me any attention at all and then when you do pay me attention it's usually because you're dragging me through the back alleys of London at 4am having stopped me eating or sleeping for the last 24 hours. Amazing you are, considerate you aren't. Besides, it's not just that. I want someone I can share a bed with too, someone who'll give me physical affection and share emotions with me." Sherlock had given him an inscrutable look at this point which had sent a flash of something through John's chest, a tightness, but a warm feeling too.

"There are two problems with that where you're concerned, Sherlock." John had continued "One, you're a bloke and I'm not gay and two, you don't do 'sentiment'" John waggled his fingers for inverted commas, "therefore, even though you're my best friend and I love you, I'm afraid you don't really fit the profile of what I'm looking for."

"Hmmff!" Sherlock had huffed his response and then suddenly looked up again at John. "You … you love me?"

"Yes, as a friend, Sherlock, as a bloody friend. Let's wind down the bromance jeez!" And with that he'd laughed and gone to make himself another cup of tea; even being a guest in what was now just Sherlock's flat, he was forced to make his own drinks. However, inwardly he was cursing himself for letting that phrase slip out. He'd meant it, of course, but it got him thinking about saying those words in another context and how Sherlock might be thinking that too. After all, if the man was anything, he was probably gay, but he didn't really understand nuances of emotion. Would he be able to separate the types of love John meant? At any rate, by the time John had made his tea and gone back to the sitting room, Sherlock was peering back into his microscope and didn't seem concerned.

After this conversation they'd not spoken again about John's engagement, so John had resigned himself to the fact that Sherlock's refusal to acknowledge it, and by association, acknowledge Mary, was him giving his blessing by omission; after all if he'd had any objections to Mary he wouldn't have hesitated to air them. Also, he'd turned up at the wedding, which was something. Right?

There John went again, agonising over Sherlock's thoughts and feelings when he should be concentrating on those of his wife. He lifted his glass, smiled and kissed Mary and decided to interpret the consulting detective's sulk as him saying "John, I hate parties and people." In many ways, John felt blessed; considering the last few years, he was amazed that he could feel this happy once more.

It had been six months since Sherlock's return and John was still getting used to the feeling of having him around again. Sometimes he'd have to pinch himself to check he wasn't dreaming and that his wonderful, brilliant, amazing friend was back in his life and they were chasing down criminals together once more. However, this time, John had other obligations besides fighting a war on the streets of London; he had Mary and this made him doubly happy. His best friend and his hope for the future, his mad detective and his lovely partner, the thrill of danger and the bliss of domesticity. John sometimes woke in the night wondering when it was going to go wrong. But six months had passed and so far, everything was fine, great, brilliant really.

Anyway, Sherlock couldn't really complain when he returned to find that John had moved out of 221B and into a house with his fiancé; he had left John alone and a shadow of his former self. Several months after Sherlock's 'death' Harry had turned up on John's doorstep with a friend of a friend who had a case and the distraction had been a welcome one for both Sherlock and John, despite them being thousands of miles apart.

John had been horrified at first, him, solve a case, without Sherlock? But Mary Morstan's distress and her worry for her father had been palpable and John had never been able to ignore a crying woman, especially one as beautiful as Mary. Of course, Mycroft had kept Sherlock in the loop and Sherlock had kept dropping subtle clues into John's lap, via Molly, until Mary's father had been found. Unfortunately the man had been murdered, but his killer was caught and John and Mary were brought closer together by their shared grief over the tragic deaths of those they loved. It was only a matter of time before they fell in love with each other. What John didn't know was that, when the news reached Sherlock of John's new found happiness, Sherlock Holmes had decided that he was never going to return to his old life.

But then Sebastian Moran discovered that he was alive and John was in danger once more, thus Sherlock's hand was forced and he'd returned to save John and dispatch Moran. It had been okay for a while, but now he found himself more and more sickened by John's obsession with sentiment, more and more disconcerted by the silence in 221B and more and more lost during cases, without those thunderbolt revelations that John Hamish Watson would unwittingly inspire, by talking to him, or rather at him, often over a cup of tea.

Sherlock had been considering another disappearance, but for one thing, John's happiness.

After the inevitable anger over Sherlock's fake suicide, John had held his best friend close for an uncomfortable amount of time and emphatically stated that Sherlock was not allowed to leave him like that ever again. The implication of what might happen to John if he did was unspoken, but understood. Therefore Sherlock was trapped, having to share his blogger with this … person… which was affecting the work and yet not allowed to break the chains that held him in this limbo and exist once more for the work and the work only. In short, Sherlock was finding the situation intolerable. But it also amazed him, he'd never had the desire to do something as unselfish as this before, to stay miserable, just so another could be happy.

John was oblivious. Of course he knew Sherlock wasn't happy with him moving out, but without being in the flat to notice that the consulting detective's odd behaviour had become very odd indeed, he didn't realise that the Sherlock he was seeing at crime scenes and during cases, was the one approaching his usual self, simply because the work took the edge off the abject misery he was feeling.

Mycroft Holmes had been observing his brother for several months, but he'd been observing him more intently than ever today and now he decided it was time for action. John was laughing with Mary and Mrs Hudson, likely over something Sherlock related, when Mycroft approached. John looked over and nodded cautiously.

"John, my dear, many congratulations" Mycroft hugged John with a flourish and the shocked army doctor froze in his embrace. Mary noticed her husband's terrified expression and giggled. "May we talk somewhere about a private matter, Dr Watson?" Mycroft said, pulling away from his brother's best friend.

"Must we Mycroft? It's my wedding day!"

"The British Government waits for no man, nor for any wedding my dear doctor. I'm sure your lovely Mary will be alright with Mrs Hudson for a while, won't you my dear?." And Mycroft put on his best Holmesian charm and kissed the woman on the cheek.

Mary smiled and pushed John towards him, "Go on sweetie, it sounds important". Luckily for John, he and Mary were still in a honeymoon phase, where every time John left her for one, or the other of the Holmes brothers, she acquiesced graciously, still referring to John's work with them as 'important'. John did wonder though if, several years down the line, when they had children and struggled to spend quality time together, whether his rushing off at all hours would be quite as well received. He pushed that thought to the back of his mind; surely she'd still understand that he needed this excitement in his life and wouldn't ask him to give it up.

John sighed "Ok, five minutes". He kissed Mary on the cheek, smiled at her and accompanied Mycroft into one of the rooms off the hallway of the hotel they'd hired for the occasion. John turned to speak to him as the door closed behind them.

"Now what's so important that you had to drag …. " John was cut off mid sentence as Mycroft jabbed the end of his umbrella hard into the centre of the scar on John's shoulder. John's cry of pain was swallowed by a blow to his solar plexus, that stole his breath and the next blow fell on his previously weakened leg. His knees gave out, delivering him hard to the wooden floor and he raised a hand to defend himself from further blows, but none came. Mycroft simply stood there, admiring his work until John had stopped groaning. Then the elder Holmes reached out and hauled John Watson back to his feet.

"What the fuck was…?"

"You've destroyed him."

"What?" John was metaphorically floored this time, not sure whether to rub the nicely blooming bruise on his shoulder, the one in his abdomen, or the one on his leg and wondering what the hell Mycroft Holmes was talking about. It was to do with Sherlock, that was certain, but other than this deduction, John was baffled.

"You have left my brother bereft John, I can see it as plainly as I see you now, even if you remain blissfully unaware of this fact. Don't forget, you don't see him every day any more, you have no idea just how erratic his behaviour has become and how little he takes care of himself. Not to mention …"

"Hang on, just … just …" John put his hands up to placate Mycroft, but was afraid for a second that he might get 'umbrella-ed" again. "What's all this 'you've destroyed Sherlock crap?' We weren't bloody married Mycroft, I'm just his friend and friends lead their own lives. Sherlock can see that; he told me he didn't want me to move out, but he said that it was probably healthier for his work and my sanity. I remember that conversation quite clearly thank you, so if you think that I …"

"Oh I don't just think John" Mycroft hissed menacingly now "I know. And you should too. Of course Sherlock isn't going to tell you how much you mean to him, that would be him admitting to sentiment" Mycroft spat the word with almost as much disdain as his brother did. "But I know that you mean everything to him. He has linked you with the work and now that link cannot be undone, therefore without you, the work suffers. He has relied on you to take care of him at 221B and now you are gone, Sherlock forgets to take care of himself. Also, he has come to depend upon you simply being there, in his vicinity, and now you are not, he is lost." This speech had seen Mycroft back John into a wall and spit his words with barely disguised anger at the shorter army doctor.

"Bloody hell Mycroft" John suddenly snapped, pushing his accuser away, "It's not as if I've done to him what he did to me. Besides, if he's so dependent on me, why was he able to cope so well alone for …"

"Because he wasn't alone John, he had Molly and he had me."

"Y… you?" A flash of hurt ran through John at this revelation. He had known Sherlock had utilised his faithful admirer to fake his own death and to put him up from time to time, but he'd always assumed that Mycroft had experienced the same guilt and grief that he'd gone through. To discover this wasn't true was one more betrayal in John's eyes, even if Sherlock's reasons for doing what he did had been noble. Ultimately, John felt that Sherlock hadn't trusted him enough to keep a secret and this hurt.

"Well he's still got the two of you, why don't you discuss this with Molly." John made as if to leave then, but Mycroft raised his umbrella in warning and the doctor backed against the wall once more, his expression fierce despite his predicament.

"I'm not sure if you've failed to notice this John, but my brother is home now; he was forced to rely on myself and Molly, he chooses to rely on you. There's a big difference."

"Could've fooled me" John smiled bitterly, "seems he let everyone know he was fine except his supposed best friend."

"He didn't let me know John, I worked it out. I recognised the pseudonym he was using immediately and we found a way to keep in contact. I kept him" Mycroft cleared his throat and had the decency to look embarrassed "aware of your movements."

"You mean you had me stalked?" John stated wearily.

"It was a comfort to him to know you were" Mycroft waved his hand absentmindedly "if not ok, at least alive."

"Jesus, Mycroft, this is fucked up, look, Sherlock's a grown man and a self confessed sociopath, he has my deepest affection as a friend but …"

"Oh come on John, you know as well as I do that my brother is not a sociopath; he has Aspergers. It doesn't take a doctor to work out what that means when you change the most familiar and comfortable environment he's ever known."

John sighed again and looked down, "I suspected as much" and a heavy feeling of guilt settled in his stomach. But then John thought of Mary and the life he was about to build with her and reminded himself that he was just Sherlock's friend, whatever that might mean to that strange and wonderful man; John barely held the distinction of assistant when the game was on.

"But that doesn't alter the fact that I'm not the possession of an autistic savant Mycroft. I have my own life. If I thought he really cared for me then maybe I'd …"

"You don't think my brother cares?"

"Frankly, no Mycroft. He regards me as more tolerable than the rest of humanity and he needs to keep me around because he's comfortable with me and I certainly care for him, which he likes, but no, he doesn't know how to care, only how to possess. That's not his fault I grant you, but …" Mycroft held up a hand then and the pained look on his face stopped John from continuing.

"Let me tell you a story John."

"Mycroft!" John growled in frustration "I need to get back to Mary."

Mycroft's response was to push his umbrella across John's neck, pinning him to the wall. "Let me tell you a story John" He repeated more emphatically and released a choking John Watson, waiting for him to recover his breath before speaking. John knew better than to try and leave.

And Mycroft began …