AN: This has been a long time going up and I'm sorry! I'm still not satisfied with this chapter but it is what it is and you've waited long enough. If it helps, the next one should be much faster and much more satisfying for all of us.
For you who were wondering, no, this won't ever get case-y. Or have any actual plot. I'm rubbish at plots, haha. Nope, this is purely domestic fluff. Next up here we have a bit on how lives outside of 221B are getting along. Hope you enjoy!
Lestrade retires. He really should have done it earlier, but he was always the only one up to dealing with Sherlock. He still is, but he's just past sixty and he's earned this.
They throw him a party. A dinner, actually, as though he's getting married instead of just getting old. He objects, but not very strongly. He knew it was coming and was actually sort of hoping for it.
He insists that Sherlock and John be invited, despite not being part of the department. Sally Donovan, who is organizing the party, objects, but not very strongly, for much the same reasons.
Sherlock behaves himself surprisingly well—he doesn't deduce people at the table or make conversation about anything he's ever learned while investigating in any part of the food processing industry. So everyone, including John, is too off their guard to stop him when he stands to make a toast.
He taps his wine glass with his spoon, but it's entirely unnecessary since every eye turns to him as soon as he stands. John reaches up automatically to seize his elbow, but recognizes it as too late and stops to drag his hand over his face instead. He smiles a little apologetically around the table—"my husband, ladies and gentlemen, as least as long as he doesn't mortally offend or embarrass too many people in a moment" says the smile—but Sherlock doesn't notice.
Sherlock clears his throat, and looks toward Lestrade and Lestrade smiles a little bit back at him.
"Gregory Lestrade," Sherlock says in a quiet voice, meeting the other man's eyes firmly, "thank you."
And, to universal surprise, he sits back down.
There are a few other little toasts, including from new Detective Inspector Donovan, but somehow none of them ring quite as eloquent as those two words.
Lestrade gets an encore afterward. John comes up to him as everyone is leaving and shakes his hand, a quiet, warm smile on his face. "Thank you," he says.
"Now John Watson, I wonder what it is you'rethanking me for," returns Lestrade with an equally warm smile.
"Well, much of the same as he was," John says, and that means Sherlock's first case, but the cleaning up you made him do to get that first case too. Coming over yourself when he wouldn't answer texts. Drug busts to keep him serious.Sherlock has told him little, but it's been there to see, through the years. "Thank you for getting him to me, Greg." His smile widens into a grin. "But also for convincing me of something a long time ago."
He doesn't need to say anything more than that for Lestrade to grin back at him and clap a hand to John's shoulder. "I didn't convince you," he says. "I just pointed out that you'd convinced yourself. But you're welcome all the same."
They hug brusquely before the moment gets too saccharine, and John goes to find Sherlock and keep him from catching up on any offending he didn't do.
Some eight months later, they are in the morgue. They have been for a full forty minutes, and Sherlock hasn't once given John even a hint, though it only took him ten to examine the body and John suspects he dragged that out a bit. He just lets John go on chatting and Molly go on waving her hand about casually, and just as it looks like they're about to leave, Sherlock says "Do you have a date set, then?"
It takes about two and a half seconds of processing and then John looks immediately at Molly's left hand. He feels a bit foolish since the ring is modest, but definitely recognizable as what it is. John reaches out and arrests her fluttering hand to look at it better, and if the ring didn't give it away, Molly's megawatt smile would.
"Oh Molly, congratulations. I'm sorry for being so thick. I can't believe Sherlock didn't say anything till now. That was rotten of him, you know he saw it at once," he explains, just in case she didn't know. It's a fond reproach, and the grin she shoots at Sherlock is also fond, and it's nice but John thinks with a flash of amusement and faint dismay how much they're like a couple of girls clucking about their silly men. He lets go of her hand. Sherlock just smiles.
"When isthe date?" John says quickly, because he has an uncomfortable feeling Sherlock could see that last thought in his mind.
"Oh we haven't got a date yet," says Molly. "It was just last week."
"Apparent," says Sherlock. "You didn't start trying to catch our eyes with your hand until after the inspection of the corpse was quite done, and although you were attending fully to my analysis at the time, you were still unconsciously wiggling your fingers and touching the ring occasionally, indicating that you aren't used to its presence yet. Couldn't be more than two weeks." He doesn't add that it took him exactly four days to get used to his, or that sometimes its presence still surprises him eight years on. "For that matter, this isn't a profession very conducive to the wearing of rings, and yet despite the inconvenience of removing it whenever you need to use your hands, you haven't had the heart to leave it at home yet."
Molly smiles all the brighter, enjoying having her fondness for her new ring laid bare, and John smiles too, both impressed as always and pleased to see Molly pleased.
"Well good for Alan then," says John. "Took him long enough."
Molly laughs affectionately and Sherlock shoots John a look that means he's as mystified by where John has pulled this name from as John is about where Sherlock gets most of his deductions. John sighs inwardly. When they leave he'll have to remind Sherlock again about Alan Edwards, Molly's cat's veterinarian, who Molly has been dating. For nearly four years.
"You're both invited to the wedding, of course," says Molly. John smiles and thanks her and revises 'he'll have to remind Sherlock about Alan the veterinarian' to 'he'll have to make Sherlock memorize Alan the Veterinarian before the wedding.' There's another look, the briefest of looks, from Sherlock, like he's overheard John's brain again, and John returns the look before he can stop himself and they smirk. And then he looks back hurriedly at Molly, in case she's misinterpreted the exchange. But she's just smiling still, looking between them, that blinding, toothache-inducing smile.
"I hope," she says, "I can have half the happiness you two have found."
It doesn't really occur to John to correct her, even in his head. Because even if it's not precisely what she's thinking, they arehappy, in their strange way. It does, however, occur to him to step covertly but firmly on Sherlock's foot.
"I'm sure you will," John says warmly as he does so, and Sherlock makes a small noise of pain that he turns into a hum of agreement.
A few minutes later they offer one more congratulation each and say goodbye. Sherlock scowls at John as soon as they are out of the hospital.
"You didn't need to step on my foot."
"Oh, didn't I?"
"I wasn't going to say anything about the average divorce rates in Great Britain while she was actually standing there."
John smirks. "Really? Well that's awfully thoughtful of you. Why so tenderhearted?"
Sherlock rolls his eyes, the only concession he'll give to John's sarcasm, and sniffs, as though it's a ridiculous question. "Molly is our friend," he says stiffly.
John just smiles.
John comes in a new suit, which is likely Sherlock's doing, since John would have probably worn his ten year old suit from their own courthouse wedding if left to his own devices. Sherlock comes in a tie, which is likely John's doing, judging from the slightly dated cut and pattern compared to Sherlock's always crisp and modern wardrobe. They both benefit considerably from each other's concepts of respectability.
John picks out an espresso maker for the happy couple from their registry, and includes a nice card that he even gets Sherlock to sign. To those who know Sherlock, it is difficult to miss him sizing the groom up throughout the ceremony. John has met Alan a few times, and he's pretty sure Sherlock has too, but Sherlock has clearly deleted him. And besides, now it means something it didn't.
Alan Edwards is kind and intelligent and can hardly take his eyes off Molly. And Alan is not particularly like Sherlock (nobody is like Sherlock), but not particularly unlike him either. There is nothing about the two of them that invites any real comparison or contrast. And after his close inspection of the groom something about what he's seen leads Sherlock, upon reaching Molly in the receiving line, to smirk as proudly as though he were the groom himself and bend down and wrap his arms around her in a sudden hug that nobody, least of all the bride, could expect or explain.
When they get home, John just happens to notice the brand new espresso machine on the counter.
"Sherlock, how did you—? I got that for Molly and Alan!"
"A waste. They don't even like espresso."
"Then why did they register for it?" John challenged, irked. Sherlock snorted.
"Yes, why on earth would anyone ever get carried away when asking for what free things they want people to give them? Don't worry, John, I delivered the card."
"The card… Sherlock, did you tamper with the card?"
About two weeks later they get a very nice card in the mail from Molly and Alan, thanking them both deeply for the second-honeymoon tickets scheduled for their anniversary next year.
John says nothing about Sherlock being a secret romantic or about them apparently having much more disposable income than John is usually led to believe, but he thinks it very, very hard.