Summary:

"John couldn't stand it. Sherlock visibly had a case and John had absolutely no idea why he didn't simply grabbed his coat and scarf and barged out of the door.

Alone.

Oh.

John fidgeted on the couch and nodded at what Mary was telling him about the buffet and the wine, trying to sound interested."

CHAPTER 11

When Mrs Hudson and Mary came in with the tea and a dozen scones, tarts, and minicakes, John and Sherlock were in the living room trying to act as if nothing had happened.

John couldn't stop the dread that threatened to take him whole. Something was happening, he wasn't stupid. And, again, Sherlock refused to let him know.

John was certainly the most pathetic human being on Earth.

He was on the sofa trying not to stare at Sherlock, who was sitting on the floor, reading something on his laptop.

John started perusing the newspaper to give himself what to do. Without conscious thought, he and Sherlock began to play the game of 'What about this one?'

"This murder in a hotel room?"

"The husband, obviously. Look at her jewellery."

"The teenager found dead in a pool."

"Drugs."

John asked him about five different potential cases and Sherlock deduced one after another while still reading what was apparently his own draft about the decomposition of the human body when immersed in chicken soup. John made a note of not to ask him about that, at least not right before eating. Nor right after, either.

Mrs Hudson finally arrived upstairs, bringing cups, plates and cutlery, not trusting Sherlock's hygiene when it came to housekeeping. John could relate. Mary sat right beside him holding a warm cup in her hands. Mrs Hudson served Sherlock the tea.

John schooled his features to stop the smile that always curved his lips while watching that.

He had thought Mary had already chosen the cake to their wedding, but apparently not. Or maybe she knew that Sherlock would like to try out all those samples.

It was amazing to see Sherlock's eyes lit up by the prospect of ingesting all that sugar. Maybe that was his secret to being so full of energy all the time.

John took a sip of his tea – which he had poured himself, thank you very much. They ate and drank in silence for some time. The other three were tasting the food and sighing happily at the tea. John was trying not to lose himself in the torrent of questions he had to ask Sherlock and couldn't.

He felt trapped in a warm and comfortable cocoon – delightful, but also bloody annoying. He felt helpless. Knowing Sherlock could be in danger gave John an adrenaline kick. He wanted to do something.

He wanted to be able to, at least.

Sherlock was lining the pastries for some reason. John frowned at him.

"You should go with the strawberry jam filled one," the detective said, picking the tart and taking a bite. He made a humming noise. "Definitely," he nodded with his mouth full of sweet.

"I thought you preferred raspberry jam," John said, pointing to the Manchester tart on the tray.

Sherlock smiled, but it was so fast that John asked himself if he had really seen it at all. "Well, I do," he said, picking the tart in question. "But you don't."

Mary nodded in agreement. "True. The strawberry one is simpler, John is more likely to eat that one."

"Hey, I'm right here, you know," John said. Honestly, he didn't give a damn about the tarts. He had manilla envelopes and a stubborn friend to worry about.

Sherlock stared at him, knowingly.

John knew his thoughts must be transparent to Sherlock. The man knew everything, he sure knew what all that was doing to John. He was a prick for leaving his friend in the dark like that.

Sherlock cleared his throat and took his eyes out of John's. "He won't eat any of these at the reception, Mary, you should very well choose the ones you want."

John feigned indignation. It wasn't that hard. "Well, I'm gonna eat them all, just to prove you wrong."

Sherlock snorted and picked another pastry from the tray. "No, you won't," he said. And it sounded so unbearably sure that John felt the childish desire to fast forward to the reception just to eat all the tarts he could.

He felt the desire to rewind them until before Sherlock's fall and stop all that from happening.

John could feel Sherlock's burning eyes trying to scorch him.

Mary took the samples of cake out of the little box they were in and arranged three different pieces in each of two plates. She handed one to Sherlock and one Mrs Hudson.

John had to admit that Mrs Hudson was the expert and that Sherlock knew more about that than him. He gave up trying to shove that much sugar down his throat and leaned back on the sofa, pointedly not letting his eyes wander to the empty spot in front of the fireplace.

It reminded him of not existing. Of not being there.

Mrs Hudson told Mary they should probably choose the first cake.

"No," Sherlock said, still digging into the first sample. "Nuts," he said, pointing as well as he could with his broken hand to the plate on the coffee table. "Nut allergies is too common of an issue to choose this one," he said, not bothering to swallow the cake first. "And Harry is allergic to almond," he drank his tea.

John raised his eyebrows at him. How could he possibly–

Sherlock was rolling his eyes. John could see his thoughts in a comic balloon right over his head. 'As if you could hide anything from me, John!'

John felt embraced by Sherlock's obtrusive and obnoxious lack of sense of privacy. And then felt immediately embarrassed by it. He frowned looking down at his tea; it pained him.

Something could be happening right now.

Sherlock could be in danger.

"So the plain vanilla one?" Mary asked, licking the frosting from her thumb and snapping John out of his thoughts.

"Probably," Sherlock shrugged. "People can choose which rich sweet flavoured thing they want to have," he pointed at the options on the table.

"Okay, that makes a lot of sense," Mary said, typing something on her phone. She kept amazingly organized plans about the wedding on her phone. It made John feel very glad, but also very inadequate. "See, I knew we didn't need to hire a party planner. Look at Sherlock saving us all that money," Mary laughed, with her eyes still on her phone. "We can use it on our honeymoon, maybe we can travel for more than a month," she said, sounding excited.

John tried to share her happiness, but he couldn't. He looked at Sherlock again.

Sherlock didn't seem amused. His eyes were distant, as if his thoughts had taken him over. John tightened his grip on the cup. He wanted to shake Sherlock's shoulders and ask him if he was worried about something.

Slowly the detective came back to himself and they held each other's eyes again. It was like they were trying to win a staring contest to prove a point.

It made John feel itchy to think about leaving London for more than a month. He had just started to rebuild this – whatever this was. He didn't want to leave it behind.

He wouldn't be able to do anything while he was away, he wouldn't able to protect Sherlock, to keep him safe.

To keep him alive.

John told himself that there were still months ahead of them before the wedding. He would get over his separation anxiety soon enough, he would learn to let go. Sherlock didn't want his help. He thought he didn't need it.

Just before slipping off John's face, Sherlock's eyes held a strange density in them. It made the itch worse.

Sherlock cleared his throat and left one unfinished minicake on his plate.

"What about the tea?" Mrs Hudson asked, wiping her mouth with a napkin. "Have you decided which one you will be serving?"

"Earl Grey," John, Sherlock and Mary answered in unison. It was ridiculous. They laughed.

John knew it was his fault. He was a bit of a control freak when it came to tea. Mary could choose whatever strange flavoured tea she wanted, but John wouldn't give up on his tea. Not ever.

"Well, yes," Mrs Hudson agreed. "I know our John is obsessed with it," she said, raising her cup. "But you can always have other options."

"I didn't even know people served tea at wedding receptions," Mary laughed.

"Oh, they would if they were marrying him," Sherlock said, simply. His eyes had drifted back to his laptop's screen.

And that sentence, said with so little care, made John a bit angry. He felt exposed and hated when they talked about him as if he weren't there.

"Well, that's a pleasure only I am going to have," Mary said, resting her head on John's shoulder. It startled him to notice how trapped in his own thoughts he had been. He smiled sideways at Mary and kissed her forehead, but it felt strange.

Sherlock fidgeted where he sat and stood up abruptly, almost giving John a whiplash. He mumbled something about getting some water and walked to the kitchen. John didn't need to be the only consulting detective in the world to know he wouldn't come back any time soon.

John asked himself if anyone else had noticed Sherlock's sudden change. Mary and Mrs Hudson were talking cheerfully beside him. He felt clogged in that damn place.

Their couch had never been that crowded. It normally had only Sherlock sprawled over it, sulking or reading or just being Sherlock.

Their couch...

John stood up too and excused himself, telling them he was going to the toilet.

He stepped into the kitchen to see what Sherlock was doing. He was sitting and had his elbows on the table. His fingers brushed his lips absently, in something that resembled his habitual thinking pose.

John felt his irritation give into fondness for the figure in front of him.

To just think about losing that again...

He entered Sherlock's line of sight and waited to be noticed. Sherlock focused his eyes on him and raised an eyebrow.

"Okay?" John asked. It was stupid, but he couldn't think of anything else to say.

Sherlock frowned minutely, but nodded. He stood up and went to get some water. John leaned on the door and thought about something to say.

"So, Harry will really show up at the wedding?"

Sherlock turned his head immediately. "I didn't say that."

John hummed knowingly. He never thought Harry would really go. And it was hard to admit, but he felt a bit relieved. "Why can't we choose the mixed nuts cake then?"

Sherlock swallowed the remaining water in the glass. "You would never choose a cake she can't eat, John."

John was looking at his own feet and smiled despite of himself after hearing this. He lifted his eyes and smiled at Sherlock. "I hadn't thought about that, actually."

"Well, I did," Sherlock shrugged.

John's smile grew a bit. "Yes, you did. Thank you."

"Also, she is a Watson," Sherlock said, facing away from John. It was said so low that John doubted he was meant to hear it.

"What was that?" He asked.

Sherlock turned back to him and his expression showed that he'd rather not reply. John raised an eyebrow at him. "Watsons. They can always surprise us."

John just stared at the back of Sherlock's neck after he had hastily turned his back to him.

When facing John again, Sherlock was perfect collected. It made John question himself about why was he distressed in the first place. He smiled at John, but it didn't seem right. "Jasmine," he said.

"What?" John asked, inelegantly.

"Jasmine, John," he repeated, waiting for John to join him on his way back to the living room. John still didn't understand.

Sherlock sat on the floor again, but John remained standing. He smiled at Mary who smiled back at him.

"Mary," Sherlock said, apropos of nothing. "What do you think about jasmine tea?"

Mrs Hudson, Mary, and Sherlock had been talking back and forth about the food that would be served at the reception and John had listened to less than half of it. Some of the dishes he couldn't even spell the names. He tried to stay tuned to what was being decided, but it was almost impossible.

He started to walk about the living room, peering out of the window and perusing Sherlock's bookshelf. It looked almost the same as before, with the exception of one volume or other. The right corner of his lips turned slightly up at the sight of the thick volume about bees that Sherlock kept for no apparent reason.

To pace around that space brought so many heart-warming memories that transported him to different points in time, when he had been so unbelievably happy that of course life had to find a way of ripping everything from him.

John let his eyes wander to the wall and smirked at the smiley face looking cheerfully back at him. He could see the bullet holes and every little mark of his life on those walls. He could remember the times he hadn't been able to sleep and had come downstairs to drink tea and stare uselessly at those flowers.

John used to think it was the most hideous wallpaper in England.

Now he asked himself if maybe that wasn't the exact pattern of the walls in Sherlock's Mind Palace. The thought made John turn abruptly back to the window, and he told himself to stop feeling melancholic about not being part of those walls anymore.

He was there, at least. They were all there, for now. It had to be enough.

His eyes started travelling on their own accord again, and landed on the violin case that sat sadly on Sherlock's desk. The detective used to say that dust was always eloquent. The case told a very plain story. It didn't have a single sign of dirt on it.

It told the story of a man who missed one of the very few things that could turn his mind off and adjust his thoughts. Possibly the only thing that helped him think and was not illegal or poisonous.

John missed the sound of that violin more than he cared to dwell on it. Consciously or not, Sherlock had poured himself in it, distilling feelings John doubted he even knew he was capable of feeling.

Irene Adler had been proof enough of that.

Sherlock had painted every little corner of 221B with the sound of it, unknowingly making everything feel like home for both of them.

It must be excruciating for him to not be able to play because of his hand, John though with a pang in his heart.

He walked over to the desk and looked closely. He felt the urge to stroke the case with his fingers just to assure himself that it was real. And that Sherlock would be able to play it again very soon, if his x-rays could be trusted.

"Hello."

John jumped at the sound of Mary's voice. He cursed himself for letting his mind wander like that again. He smiled at her.

"You seem a bit out of it," she said, hugging him and caressing his cheeks with her smooth fingertips. "Tired of this wedding stuff, aren't you?"

"No," John rushed on replying and winced. "Maybe a bit," he admitted. He smiled at Mary and traced the line of her brows with his left index finger. "I trust your decisions on this."

"And trust Sherlock to help me choose everything of your liking," Mary said, rising an eyebrow at John.

He felt wrong-footed and didn't know what to say to that. They had been mates for some time, and Sherlock did have a particular way of knowing everything about everyone.

And he seemed to know more about John's taste than John himself sometimes.

Expect when it came to fake deaths and comfortable armchairs.

Mary smiled at him. "I trust him to do that, too."

"Yes, well..." John sighed, looking anywhere but at Mary's eyes. "Sherlock and trust... Not a very good combination," he said, and felt miserable for it. It gutted him in more ways than he could let himself show at that moment.

"None of that," Mary reproached him. "He is the right person to help us with this," she said, resting her head in John's shoulder. "He knows you better than anyone else."

John hugged her and thanked god she couldn't see his face. He couldn't deny it.

For some reason, there had been a part of him that wasn't available to anyone else, not even to himself.

The blipping sound of a text alert raised them both from the stupor they were in. They turned back to the sitting room and Sherlock was now looking at his phone and John knew that face well enough.

He waited for Sherlock to utter a word about the text, but it never came. He typed something and slipped the phone back into his pocket.

Mary and John gathered on the couch again and John tried to listen to everything he was being told for the second time, but he couldn't help observing Sherlock with the corner of his eyes. The detective seemed jittery and John knew that quickly enough, he would stand up and walk around the living room to give himself something to do. It was like watching a movie John had helped to write.

Sherlock received another three and four texts, and had probably received some photos judging by the amount of silly squinting he was doing at his phone. Ten or twenty minutes had passed until he started to seem miserable.

John couldn't stand it. Sherlock visibly had a case and John had absolutely no idea why he didn't simply grabbed his coat and scarf and barged out of the door.

Alone.

Oh.

John fidgeted on the couch and nodded at what Mary was telling him about the buffet and the wine, trying to sound interested.

It had completely escaped his mind for the past few minutes that Sherlock worked alone now, and that John and his fiancée were camped at the 221B living room, imposing themselves and their life on Sherlock. And Sherlock hadn't said a word about it.

John tried to feel glad for it, but it didn't erase the mortification or the longing to go along to the crime scene, to be there, to know what the texts were about.

"Here," Sherlock said, out of the blue, thrusting his phone in John's hand. He had absolutely no idea when Sherlock had appeared beside him.

John kept staring at Sherlock, holding the phone like the paralysed imbecile he felt.

Sherlock rolled his eyes and lifted John's hand that was holding his phone. "Look", he insisted. When John finally averted his eyes from Sherlock's face to the little screen, Sherlock said, almost as if pleading. "Tell me."

It was improbable that John would know something about the corpse that Sherlock couldn't discover for himself, but he looked hungrily at the picture Greg had sent, trying to discern as much as he could since that would be the closest he would get to the investigation.

"Fingers," John said, looking at Sherlock. "He didn't drown, then?"

"Yes, he did," Sherlock clarified.

"He was choked and drowned in the Thames?" John asked, realising that he was the one squinting at the phone now. "Okay, someone really did want him dead," he said, handing Sherlock his phone back.

"Yes!" Sherlock said. "Capital! Don't you think?"

John snorted. He didn't have it in him to remind Sherlock how inappropriate it was to celebrate someone's murder.

Sherlock's phone rang and Sherlock picked up. "What? Don't you even think of that!"

John raised his eyebrows.

"Don't move the body, Lestrade," he said arrogantly. Something on the other end of the line made him pause. "No..." he sighed dejectedly. "I am..." he cleared his throat awkwardly, "...busy at the moment."

John couldn't believe his ears. It was so absurd that it made him feel as if he had crossed to a different dimension. He had to do something.

Without thinking too much, he stood up and walked to the door, picking Sherlock's coat and scarf. He walked back to Sherlock's personal space and pushed everything in his chest. "Get out of here, for heaven's sake."

"What?" Sherlock asked him, astonished, while holding the items to his chest. The phone on his hand was completely forgotten.

"Get the fuck on with it, we've intruded too much already," John said, trying to sound cheerful, as a normal mate would. He was supporting Sherlock, this was what mates did, right?

And that was what Sherlock wanted. To work alone.

It didn't matter John could feel in his bones that he should be walking down the stairs by his side.

Sherlock's expression changed completely in a split second. His lips formed a grave line. He stuck the phone in his pocket. "No, you haven't."

John rolled his eyes. "Look, I appreciate this, but it's your work, it's the most important thing for you, I know that," he insisted. "Go on."

Sherlock lifted his chin stubbornly, and looked down at John as if he knew a billion things John had no idea of – which he probably did. His eyes had the intensity of a moon. "I don't want to."

"You what now?" John asked, making an expansive gesture with his hands. He had absolutely no idea what the fuck Sherlock was on about, but he knew he was dying to hop into the first cab and see that fresh corpse for himself.

Mrs Hudson and Mary had been watching their bantering with amused, but apprehensive eyes.

"John will come along with you," Mary said.

What?

John stared at her incredulously. He didn't need Mary to push it for him. That was pathetic.

Sherlock turned his head so quickly John could've sworn he had strained his neck. He kept staring at John with those eyes.

"I don't want to intrude," John said, stupidly. He knew it had been stupid the moment he said.

He damn well wanted to intrude and make room for him again in that madness. He just couldn't say, it was too much.

Sherlock paced about the room putting his coat and his scarf on. He went to the kitchen looking for something and making so much noise that Mrs Hudson and Mary cringed at the cacophony of crashing glasses and banging metal.

John had no idea what had happened, but he stood his ground. He would bid Sherlock goodbye and everything would be fine.

Sherlock appeared again, holding his phone to his year. "Come on, John," he said, grabbing John's shirt sleeve and dragging him out of the door.

"What?" John asked, idiotically, following numbingly.

He didn't even have his coat.

The thought made him turn back. Mary was right there holding his coat and gloves to him.

He really, really loved that woman.

She kissed his cheek. "Have fun," she said.

"I–"

"Come on, John!" Sherlock shouted from the stairs.

John rolled his eyes and kissed Mary goodbye.

Running down the stairs he could hear Sherlock on the phone.

"Don't let any of your people near my corpse, Lestrade. I'm bringing a competent doctor to assist," he said, smirking at John.

Judging by Sherlock's groan, Lestrade had inquired him about his new assistant.

"How you managed to be called a detective is still a mystery to me," Sherlock said, opening the door and already flagging a cab. "Doctor Watson, Lestrade, of course."

And bloody sodding hell.

It was about time.

Thank you sooo much for all the reviews, for following me on tumblr and being supportive.
It means the world to me, and it caught me completely off guard.

Archie is being particularly helpful at this point, since I am very insecure and constantly need her advice. But she already knows I love her :D