Chapter Text
It was the Big Day. A day full of sweet smiles and buttery sunlight, of champagne and dancing and promises. Lovely, lovely things. Even though all of these things are light and beautiful, they weighed heavily on Sherlock’s chest. This was supposed to be a happy day; this was John’s day. He shouldn’t take away from that. He shouldn’t want to take away from that.
The flat was so uncomfortably quiet in the time since Sherlock returned. There were no clacking keys on John’s laptop, no clinking cups on the table, no creaking footsteps on the floor above him. Just a deafening sort of silence, the kind of silence that drives someone mad. Sometimes he talked to John’s empty chair, but not because he forgot he was gone, no. John’s absence was as loud as the flat was silent. It demanded to be remembered, to be seen, to be felt. As much as he tried, as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t delete the fact that John was no longer there.
Sherlock stared at the screen in front of him. Of course John asked him to be his best man, asked him to speak aloud in front of all of those loathsome people, and of course Sherlock accepted.
The speech.
He had no idea how to start a normal best man speech, not in the slightest. Though, it was a relief that John probably wasn’t expecting anything normal. This was Sherlock, after all.
He decided that the best thing to do would be to just start writing. To just start with the undeniable truths of John Watson. It was difficult to write and even harder to read back. It was sappy and emotional and all the things Sherlock tried to convince people that he was not.
The obvious, glaring truth of it all made his stomach ache.
The actual wedding seemed to take an entire age to finally get underway. People were ushered to seats, small talk was spoken and smiles were forcibly exchanged. It was long and tedious and boring. He hated every second of it because he hated how much his gut was wrenching.
I told you, Sherlock.
While his brother’s voice bounced in his head, Sherlock retreated to an empty room. To practice his speech, he told himself. That was all. He took the cards out of his pocket and started reciting the words that he already knew, the words that he didn’t think he would ever stop knowing.
Don’t get involved.
John looked different. Sherlock had seen him at various moments throughout the day but there was something about the way he looked at the altar. He was glowing. It might have just been the angle of the sun through the stained windows, but either way, Sherlock didn’t want to stop looking.
His chest tightened when John’s face somehow got lighter when Mary approached him from down the aisle. Sherlock remembered John being happy like that a long time ago, back when they were two idiots dashing through the dark streets of London. Back when it was the two of them against the rest of the world. Sherlock bit his lip to keep from snarling at the thought of it.
The man that stood in front of the couple said some very nice things that Sherlock paid no attention to. He just kept talking and talking and talking. So much work and so much talking for such a simple arrangement. An arrangement that crumbles and fails in over fifty percent of couples.
Liar.
The word still hung around Mary’s head like a halo. Under any normal circumstance, Sherlock would have told John about his deduction on the night that he came back. But of course he didn’t. Sherlock could see how Mary stitched John back together after he’d left. If John was happy, that was good enough. It had to be good enough.
The night that Sherlock returned did not go the way he had imagined it would, and Sherlock had imagined it plenty. When the metal-tipped whips came down across his back, when the food stopped coming for days, when they refused to let him sleep, there was always John. The thought of him was the thing that kept Sherlock from giving up completely. The scenarios he played out in his mind were his escape, they were the only things that kept him sane. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t hoping to share a bed with him on the night of his return.
He would be lying if he said he never thought of just John and himself at the altar.
Sherlock looked to the floor. He would keep it together, for John, he would compose himself. He would not let his ridiculous pining ruin John’s day, the biggest and most important day of his life.
He tried to throw himself deep into his mind palace when it was time for the “I do’s,” so deep that he didn’t realize he whispered along with Mary.
I do.
It was hardly audible, his lips barely moved. But John heard. Sherlock knew that John heard. His chin turned upward by a fraction of a centimeter, his posture stiffened ever so slightly, and there was a split-second hesitation before his responding I do. Sherlock could practically hear the gears turning in John’s head before spitting the words out of his mouth.
Sherlock bit the inside of his lip so hard that it bled.
John knew.
No matter what Sherlock did now, no matter how much he wanted to delete it, to delete everything, John knew, and that was the one thing that Sherlock swore he would never let happen.
The reception came next. God, the reception. The speech. He thanked the universe and all of its stars that John acted completely normally. Perhaps he hadn’t heard after all. He didn’t pull him aside, he didn’t toss him out of the wedding, he just continued to be John Watson, the husband. Husband. The word fit nicely on him.
He swallowed the lump in his throat and started his speech.
The only thing that he remembered was trying so hard to seem fine, even though if someone were to check his pulse they would think he was going into cardiac arrest. He said so many things about John and so many people started crying. John started crying. Sherlock didn’t understand what was happening; he was simply stating the facts.
Every thought ran straight out of his head when John stood to hug him. He didn’t even have the brain capacity to try and hug back.
He tried not to leave early, he truly did. But he couldn’t, he simply couldn’t stand there and watch that man dance with his new wife and look so bloody happy while doing it. So he left early, which is apparently something that you’re not supposed to do.
He always knew that he would end up alone, he knew that he was too much trouble for someone to want to deal with indefinitely. He’d made friends with the idea of loneliness until he met John. The one person in all his life that fought the darkness away, the one person he wanted to spend time with. Not necessarily forever, but indefinitely. He thought he knew what being lonely felt like before, but he really didn’t. This kind of loneliness was real, it was raw and it felt like someone had misplaced all of his insides.
Sherlock walked into his flat and collapsed in John’s chair. He’d have to move it eventually, he couldn’t bear to see it right in the center of the flat, right where everyone could see it, right where anyone could sit in it. He’d move it in the morning.
He hated that his vision was swimming. He hated crying. It was such a useless and pointless thing to do. But he did plenty of useless and pointless things for John, he supposed.
He woke up to the sound of footsteps on the stairs. John’s footsteps. How long had he been asleep? Why did he allow himself to fall asleep?
Sherlock launched himself out of the chair and was standing awkwardly in the center of the room, hair matted and eyes foggy from sleep when John walked in.
His voice was quiet. “We should talk.”
It took everything in him to stop himself from just shoving John out the door. Shoving John against the wall. “Aren’t you supposed to be leaving for your Sex Holiday?” Sherlock’s voice was bored and nonchalant. Honeymoon, he thought. He felt a pang in his gut.
“We’re not leaving until tomorrow.” John pursed his lips and couldn’t meet Sherlock’s eyes. To be fair, Sherlock couldn’t meet his either.
He turned away and stepped toward the window. “You should go, John.”
“I heard you.” He said, louder and angrier than before. “At the altar, I heard you.” He took a step closer to Sherlock, who didn’t even flinch. “I’m not going to pretend I didn’t.”
“Why not?” Sherlock snapped, turning towards him. “You’ve pretended thus far.”
John made an exasperated sound. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Sherlock smiled mirthlessly. “You see, but you do not observe.” He turned away again towards the window. “This conversation has waited years to occur. It can wait.”
John shook his head and looked at the floor. “How long, exactly, are we going to pretend that nothing happened?”
“Indefinitely.”
“Fine.” John said. In that word, Sherlock could see all the things that John wanted to do. John wanted to hit him, John wanted to break something, John wanted to storm out and slam the door. But he didn’t do any of those things. He simply started walking away. Before exiting, he turned back around and spoke to the back of Sherlock’s head. “For the record, you didn’t see me either.”
Each thud against the stairs made Sherlock wince, each footstep like a stab in the chest.