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Sherlock pulls his coat tighter as he battles the chill in the country air. It had been unseasonably warm earlier, the sun shining down on him, on John, on them, as they greeted John and Mary’s (mostly Mary’s) wedding guests. Now, though, as he walks, solitary, up to the main road to hail a taxi, there is no such chance of the same warmth relaxing his worn muscles. He has spent the past few weeks obsessively planning every minute detail of the wedding that he has hardly taken any time to focus on himself, or his own needs. As he climbs into the first available taxi, he sinks into himself as he braces for the long ride home. English countryside. Hateful.
He’d done everything he could to make sure that the day was perfect for his dearest friends, and it was. By all accounts, it was. Yes, there was the little inconvenience of the photographer trying to murder John’s… something… but nothing detracted from the happy couple. He almost could have seen it through, too, had he not made that last, glaring deduction. When John danced away, Mary in his arms, he knew it was time to leave. As John had said, “We can’t all three dance, there are limits.” It’s not that he thought he could intrude on the couple’s, well, coupledom, he just thought there would be a bit more room for him before it was time to accept that he was, as always, alone. He spends the rest of the car ride grappling with the decision he knows he will ultimately make.
He hangs up his coat and climbs the well-worn steps to 221B, feeling his aloneness in every step. He looks to his violin for solace, but can’t imagine it will bring him any tonight. Not when he had just had to play a song for John and Mary. He brings his hands to his lips, feeling untethered, or tetherless, in fact. He knows, he does, that he shouldn’t turn to his 7% solution, but the idea sings in his veins like a resolution. The only thing holding him back is the promise of a case tomorrow, or the next day. Instead, he removes the Persian slipper from inside the hearth and lights a cigarette, allowing the nicotine to hit all the right places in his brain and mind to slow down his thoughts.
It isn’t enough, but nothing will be. Not tonight.
He stands by the window, smoking, trying to clear his mind and focus on the street below. Suddenly, he sees the familiar head of silver-blonde hair alighting from a taxi and his breath catches on the next exhale.
John.
He barely dares to breathe as John makes his way into the building, up the stairs, and into 221B. As soon as he’s through the door, Sherlock turns, extinguishing his cigarette in the slipper. They look at each other for a beat, John’s eyes imploring, Sherlock trying to mask his pained expression with a more carefully neutral one.
“Sherlock,” John says. Just that.
“John.”
Neither of them speaks for a moment more until the air feels electric and the tension untenable.
“Why are you here?” Sherlock asks, not unkindly.
John scratches the back of his neck, nervous habit, his eyes on the carpet beneath him. “Just… checking on you. You left.”
“Yes?”
He looks back up, catching Sherlock’s eyes, Sherlock’s inner turmoil seeming to match John’s expression. “Why did you leave?” he barely whispers.
Sherlock is stunned. John followed him here, all the way, just to ask him this? His astonishment soon turns to fury. That John would expect so much of him, especially this.
“I left,” he begins crisply, “because it was time to leave. The party was over. It was time to come home.”
“Was it?” And it sounds like defeat.
Sherlock sighs, allowing his tense frame to soften, and walks to his chair. He motions for John to do the same, gesturing to John’s chair with his palm up, before unbuttoning his jacket and taking his seat.
John hesitates a moment, oscillating in the doorway before he sighs resignedly and accepts the offer.
Sherlock says nothing. Then: “Well?”
“Well, erm,” John rubs his palms on his thighs, seeming to work up to something. “Well, I just wondered why you’d leave my wedding early.”
“John. You followed me home just to ask why I’d leave your wedding early?”
“Yes. That’s not… Yes.”
Sherlock feels the rage bubble up and push the courage to the surface. “What is it, John? Am I to wait around until you need me? Should I have sat in the corner like a wounded animal until it was time for you to play with me again ?” His voice hitches higher during his probing, ending the sentence with a shout.
John looks at him in shock, mouth slightly parted. “Sherlock, I–”
“You what? You didn’t mean it? You’re sorry? You shouldn’t have followed me here? Why don’t you spit it out for once!”
John stands up abruptly and takes two quick steps towards the door before pausing, turning, and coming back to stand in front of Sherlock’s chair. He jabs his index finger in Sherlock’s direction. “ You’re one to talk! We wouldn’t even be here, having this conversation in the first place, if you had once, just once, spit it out! ”
“And what good would that have done?” Sherlock shouts back.
“What goo– You can’t seriously be asking me that fucking question right now!”
It seems they are at an impasse.
Sherlock wills himself to calm his erratic breathing. That so much would spurt to the surface so quickly is… not ideal. He has held himself carefully, weavinghis emotions as tight as a coil, all this time. And for it to all go to hell now simply won’t do.
“John,” he begins gently, expression softening as he tries to defuse the situation.
“Sherlock. I– You can’t say that to me. You can’t say that to me now .”
“I know,” Sherlock breathes, turning his eyes down.
John takes his seat once again.
After a long while, he speaks. “I don’t know.”
This quirks Sherlock’s attention. “Hmm?” He glances up to find John staring at the fireplace, lost to him for the time being. “Don’t know what, exactly?”
“Don’t know what good it would have done.”
“Ah.”
“But… I think… No, I’m pretty sure, that I would have liked the opportunity to find out.”
There it is. In the air between them, not able to be taken back, not ever. Not even with an onslaught of further words and declarations and questions to haphazardly bundle over it at a later date.
“Yes,” Sherlock agrees.
They sit that way for a while longer, the familiar comfort of the other in silence that they had grown so accustomed to before… before… They don’t look at each other, each in their own reverie. Before an hour is up, John stands, waits for Sherlock to look at him.
“Well,” he says, hand waving uselessly between them.
Sherlock smiles, soft and sad, and looks down again. Needs must.
John nods, perfunctory, and leaves the same way he came.