Best man... Best man...
Those words swirled around Sherlock's head. John wanted him to be his best man.
Sherlock was sitting at his table at 221B, watching the blank document wait for his words to flow onto them; words that would come together to form his best man speech, how the hell was he supposed to write a best man's speech? Where do you begin? Where does it end? Are you supposed to make jokes about the person, or talk about how much they mean to you? What the hell does one even write?
Sherlock turns to his book on how to write the best, Best Man's speech and all he sees are pointless tips and cringe-worthy jokes and puns. No way in hell would he even dream of putting something like that in his speech!
Sherlock pushed himself away from the table angrily; he was losing his patience and he began to scowl like a spoilt child. He doesn't know the first thing about speeches and John expects him to be able to write an entire speech for his wedding day, in which he will have to speak to a room of people he doesn't know or even care about who obviously will judge him and everything about him.
He paces around the room, hands clasped and finger-tips to his lips; think Sherlock, think! The book said you should talk about the person at hand; John. Talking about John can't be hard. Sherlock stops pacing around the room and stares out the window into the bright sunny day that so rarely rears its head during the spring. John. In all honesty Sherlock could go on all day about John; the man who saved his life countless times, the man who saved a sad man and turned him into someone worth being around sometimes. John taught him about being more… human. John is the reason he's here today, pacing about the room, wondering what to put in his speech. John the hero, John his savior, JOHN.
John's face spun around Sherlock's mind for a while; everything about him made Sherlock feel better, he made him feel safe and warm inside. John actually made Sherlock happy.
Sherlock snaps his head away from the window and decides to turn his attention to John and Mary's waltz on which he was working on. Scanning his eyes over the sheet music he frowns; not good enough. He re-read the notes again and again, and each time he read them the frown grew more and more sour.
"Not good enough." he mutters to himself as he scrunched up the sheet music and threw it in a corner of the living room, then seeming rather frustrated he scrounged around for more music sheets to begin again.
Hours pass and he finally puts down his violin and has a final look at the music he had composed.
"Ahhh, much better." he smiles to himself and thinks about what a genius he is as he proceeds to sign the paper:
"John and Mary's Waltz
By Sherlock Holmes"
He turns around the room to find himself staring at his laptop and useless guide book to help him write his speech. He sighs out of boredom and decides to check if he has any new cases pending. The speech can wait for now.
A few days later, early in the morning, Sherlock was once again sitting at the table staring at his laptop, searching for the slightest hint of inspiration for his best mans speech.
It's not that he couldn't think of what to write about John; oh no, there was plenty he could write about John; he just didn't know how to phrase it. One side of Sherlock really wanted to address John's habit of talking at a crime scene when what he was saying held no weight on the investigation whatsoever and he was wasting his breath talking about something he already figured out several minutes before him, and the fact that he always wore those bloody jumpers that reminded him of his father, and the fact that he decided to grow that bloody mustache; sure he shaved it off but the fact that he ever thought it was a good idea really made Sherlock worry about his idea of looking good and seeming appealing to him- Mary, he meant Mary; seeming appealing to Mary, because Mary was his wife-to-be. But Sherlock knew what a bad idea it was to start talking about all these parts of John he disliked, because the parts he liked greatly outweighed the ones he didn't.
Sherlock drifted off into his mind, curling his thoughts around John and John alone.
Sherlock went back to when he first met John at St. Barts. The day his life got a whole lot better.
It was an average day; just looking into a case and easily finding out who the killer was through a few simple tests. Molly was being rather pushy with her attempts and conversing and her indecisiveness on her lipstick was rather irritating to Sherlock, who was just there to solve another case and be on his way hoping to find something with more of a challenge to it. There he was, conducting tests and waiting for his coffee that Molly so kindly asked him about and then in came John. Mike was the man of the hour when Sherlock came to think about it; if it weren't for Mike they would have never met. Sherlock had a fleeting thought of thanking Mike, but decided against it. Not his style to thank someone for something that should happen. Anyway, John. The moment he walked in Sherlock felt himself stand a little taller and felt a little more self-conscious. He ignored that of course, and proceeded to ignore the random man who clearly came back from some war and asked Mike about borrowing his phone. He expected the rather interesting and odd man to remain quite, as they all usually do, and awkwardly observe him, as they all usually do, before they proceed to form the idea that he, Sherlock Holmes, was a freak of nature because he could figure something out about them that they can't stand talking about.
Mike proceeded to say he had his phone in his other coat, and Sherlock remembered feeling annoyed at the foolishness of Mike. Silly idiots, leaving important items that he needs in their other coats. Then the stranger spoke, offering him his phone. How odd, thought Sherlock at the time, he doesn't even know him and he's letting him use his phone. Thanking him, Sherlock took the phone immediately observing the tan-line and the expensive phone with the engraving and the obvious fact that it was a gift. He proceeded to see the state of the charging spot on the phone and further deduced that the brother who had given him this phone to obviously stay in touch seeing as he was an army doctor coming to look for a flat mate was an alcoholic who wanted to keep in-touch with John, but John didn't want to keep in-touch with him. He sent his message and then went back to his little experiment.
The conversation between them was brief and self-explanatory. Sherlock then further deduced that he had found himself a potential flat mate. There was something about John that made Sherlock want to up his game.
As he proceeded to leave the directness of this man surprised him;
"We don't know a thing about each other. I don't know where we're meeting. I don't even know your name."
How foolish, Sherlock thought. I know all I need to know to see that you aren't a bloody insane murderer and you're worth making room in my life for, at least for now. Sherlock decided to answer:
"I know you're an army doctor and you've been invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you've got a brother who's worried about you, but you won't go to him for help because you don't approve of him—possibly because he's an alcoholic, more likely because he recently walked out on his wife. And I know that your therapist thinks your limp's psychosomatic, quite correctly I'm afraid. That's enough to be going on with, don't you think?"
Sherlock remembered feeling quite smug about himself in that moment; with any luck that stranger would see the genius he would be living with and deep down Sherlock hoped he had impressed him and not left a bad impression for once.
As he left he gave the stranger a wink because he always thought that it's what people do when trying to seem fun and charming; he wanted the stranger to find him charming.
Thinking back on the first time he met John made Sherlock smile, and he was grinning to himself like an idiot, alone in his apartment. It didn't change the fact that his word count on his speech was practically -1 words and he knew if he were to add such a story to the speech it would create awkwardness amongst those vile people he would have to speak out to. John taught him that
In all honesty, Sherlock would be able to go on and on about John, with no breaks or pauses, no stops or hesitant breaths; all day and all night Sherlock could go on about the man that saved his life countless times. It would be too light a word to say that Sherlock "adores" John, and too ridiculous to use the word "infatuation" for the description of John in Sherlock's eyes, "obsession" would be too heavy a word and "desire" would be too brief an explanation of Sherlock's yearning for John. Love is the only word that could describe the way Sherlock felt towards this military man; it doesn't have to be romantic love, or even platonic love, but it was love. Sherlock would do anything for the happiness of that man, would do anything to see him enjoy his life, would rip his heart out if it would save John, he would take down a country if it threatened John in any way, blow the brains out of any man that hurt him, rip the tongue out of any woman that spoke badly about John for no reason, and reveal the truth if the lie hurt John more than the truth would.
Sherlock wished he would be able to say all this in his speech; he wished he could admit his true feelings towards John and let him know that even though he was gone for 2 years he never wanted to be so far from him, he never wanted to make John's soul hurt and make is heart break and make him weep tears of mourning. He wished he could tell John that without him he wouldn't be standing there, and that the only reason he was able to go those 2 years without him was because John was the voice in his head; John become the conscience that he hadn't had before, the voice in his head guiding him, helping him, and saving him when he didn't know how much more he could handle. John was always there for him even when he was so far; he may have been gone in John's mind but in Sherlock's he was just as alive as ever, helping him along every step of the way and making life a bit sweeter for him. John was part of him now, forever and always.
He knew it was too late though; too late to admit this love he had for him, too late to breathe words of love into his ears, too late to breathe words of unspoken moments between them. John was Mary's now, and he could never come out with what he truly felt for John. When Sherlock thought of this he felt as though something was pressing up against his chest; something heavy and he couldn't get rid of it.
"What's wrong with me?" he thought.
He suddenly felt very tired; all he wanted to do was crawl back into bed and forget everything and everyone. He wanted to go back to being the cold, distant man he used to be. The man he was before he met John. Sometimes he missed how easy it was to dismiss people, how easy it was just to work on a case and that would be the main focal point in his life. Where was this man now, he didn't know, all he knew was the man that he would see every day in the mirror was a different man and it wasn't the Sherlock he used to know all too well. He would sit in 221B for days on end sometimes, when John was too busy for him and there were no interesting cases to solve, and just think about the way he was and what he had become. He felt off, he felt strange in his own skin but why?
Now was one of those times he felt like scratching all his skin off; it just felt so uncomfortable, like it wasn't fit for him anymore. He kept staring at the blank page on his screen; blink, blink, blink went the cursor on the page. He heard it yelling, "Write something, write SOMETHING, WRITE SOMETHING…" louder and louder with every blink. What could he write without revealing anything to John that he didn't need to know? What could he say that doesn't sound too mushy or emotional? He doesn't know how to be emotional, so trying to be emotional would turn out to be a disaster.
He clutched his temples, rubbed them, stroked them to make the throbbing, the screaming go away but nothing worked. Why did John ever ask him to be his best man?! Why? Why couldn't he have asked Gavin or Gary or whatever Lestrade's first name was? Why… because he was John's best friend.
Sherlock sighs; he gets up, paces the room, sits back down and gets right back up again. What was he doing? He isn't normally so jittery but now… now thinking about John and everything they went through together, the countless things John did for him; it tore his cracked heart to pieces. Sherlock went to sit back down at his desk and sat there in deeper thought for what seemed like hours, when really it was only a few short minutes before he reached out for his phone. He needed help and there was only one person he could call to help, only one person who knew how to deal about all this stuff.
Sherlock texted Lestrade and waited for his arrival; as he did so he looked through the book he had by his side on how to write a speech for such an occasion. Maybe he should focus on something other than the emotional side of everything.
"Funny Stories" he read. Hmmmm, sounds interesting enough. But what was so funny about John? Sure his ignorance was quite funny sometimes but more than anything it could be annoying and slow him down. Memories swirled around his head and he just thought and thought until he floated around in a sea of moving thoughts.
A clambering up the stairs brought his mind back to the reality he so hated sometimes; Lestrade. As he came into the room and blabbered something he spoke.