Trying – John/Mary/Sherlock – 504 words
They work brilliantly together, the three of them, but they're hard to define – especially after. After Mary – or whatever her real name is; Mycroft knows, Sherlock might too, but nobody's telling anybody anything and John's not sure how he feels about that – shoots Sherlock.
John's a soldier. John's a doctor. John's an army doctor. He's an adrenaline addict in denial. He's the strangest concoction of rage and nurturing to have ever inhabited a human body.
Sherlock is a genius. Sherlock is a sociopath. He's indispensable and incorrigible. He's a drug addict whether or not he'll admit it. He's quite possibly the strangest, most infuriating person John has ever met.
Mary is a nurse. Mary is an assassin. She's a one person today, but has had a hundred more aliases in the past. So which of those people is the true persons, and not a mask? Today – and for the rest of her life, she desperately hopes and prays – she is Mary Morstan, and that is more than good enough for her.
One time, Sherlock confessed to having gone on a date – "It was just one, John, and only because they're interesting; don't look at me like that!" – with Jim Moriarty and Irene Adler. The idea of those three as an established triad had made John's stomach turn over from the sheer danger and recklessness that they would so effortlessly represent. These days, he's not sure which triad is worse in that respect –Sherlock with Jim and Irene, or Sherlock with him and Mary.
But they're still trying. They're trying to get back to solid ground – though it's mostly because of Sherlock that John hasn't already left their wife – but it's not easy. The air sometimes hangs thick with secrets that the boys now know Mary still holds, and isn't likely to reveal. John is dealing with more rage than ever before, and when he explodes these days – which is more often than ever – there are moments when he is physically violent about it. Sherlock has somehow managed to compose no less than nine pieces of ridiculously complicated music – full-on violin concertos, John's almost certain – and the soldier is starting to get the feeling that it's in a futile effort to ward off a screaming fest the likes of which is usually more of John's caliber.
At first, Sherlock couldn't even sleep in the same bed as their wife – not that John presently wanted to anyway – so she took the couch without a word, and there they were for over a month and a half. Then Mary switched perfumes, John forced himself to start buying her flowers again in hopes that one day he might actually want to again, and Sherlock gave her puppy and asked her if she was coming to bed with him and John as if things had never changed, even though they had.
But still, it was John, Mary, and Sherlock. There was nothing they couldn't do if they put their minds to it. And they wanted their marriage to last.