The Ring Finger
part twoLestrade couldn't have called at a less opportune time. There was a murder and a foot-chase and a stop off for chips knowing the Chinese would be cold. Then Sherlock went to bed. John almost managed it himself, almost, save for that voice that waited until the lights were out and the sounds of the flat completely silenced before pushing aside the fantastic deductions and breathless pursuits to whisper one last thing to his tired mind: he's married.
It would have been a hilarious joke. Should have been. Sherlock didn't jest in that fashion, though, and wouldn't really find much humor in pretending to be married despite rebuking the idea of a wedding ring. So it was true; Sherlock Holmes was married. John kicked his blankets off with a groan as that singular thought stole every inkling towards sleep from him and replaced it with spinning concerns that simply did not have any answers.
Married. Since when? Surely not since John had moved in and yet even saying as such was a fallacy when considering the subject was Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock wouldn't think anything of popping out, signing a few documents, and returning home with nothing but grief on the route of the cabby. It was all too likely, honestly. The man was a callous arse who didn't think important personal things like getting married mattered.
John rolled over in bed, punching his pillow into softness as he scowled into the night. He supposed he never did ask much about the circumstances that lead to Sherlock needing a new place to live which had cummulated in their shared residence on Baker Street. John had been invalided home from the army but Sherlock, as far as John knew, hadn't had any dire circumstances behind his needing a new home and flatmate. Living with Mycroft? Some halfway house? Had he hated a flatmate more than he liked his home? It would make all too much sense to place him in a disastrous marriage in which his wife kept the property and most of his funds tied up, allowing Sherlock to retreat to a free lifestyle of crimes and clues. It would explain why he needed a roommate even though he was quite affluent and knowing Sherlock he probably simply couldn't be arsed to follow through with paperwork. That was the easy explanation--one possible solution based on only some of the evidence. He'd been spending too much time with Sherlock if even half-past four in the morning wasn't a good enough excuse for sloppy detective work.
Greg had known him for years and never mentioned a wife. Donovan had been surprised that Sherlock had a colleague so at the very least he'd have had to have hidden it from NSY. Mycroft made comments on Sherlock's virginity in squabbles rather than teasing him on a failed marriage and they had both professed to a mystery in understanding Sherlock's heart. Being married before meeting John fit with the circumstances but was ill-fashioned to explain anything of substance relating to the man and those who knew him.
So it seemed he'd married in the years since John'd met him. And didn't say anything. To anyone. Not even to John.
To be honest, that hurt. It hurt a lot. Even if it wasn't anything more than speculation, it was a very real possibility which painted their friendship as less meaningful than John had always felt it was. It was sleep-depriving in its echos, little stabs in his gut and chest that were cold and left him numb. Sherlock knew better. Surely he did. So why on earth did he hide this part of himself from John? Was he embarrassed? Was he ashamed? Was there some kind of secret to be kept in his wife's identity that forced him to suppression? He simply could not know without asking and sadly Sherlock was a terribly unreliable narrator of even his own life's story.
Giving up on sleep, John threw his legs over the side of the bed and set his sights on the kitchen to get a glass of water. His throat was dry and stomach sour from all the unwanted thoughts. He'd call it heartburn if it bothered to feel like fire but instead it was cold, a belly full of ice and overflowing up his throat with a taste like boiled eggs' smelled. He wrapped himself in his dressing gown and slowly took the stairs down to the first floor of the flat, careful of the one floorboard that creaked on the third step up. He went through the den rather than straight through to the kitchen on tired feet that followed the path on instinct. The violin was still on its stand rather than the case from their hurried departure, white pages of music still splayed over the black frame by the darkened window. John's chair was sitting back, waiting for the performance that never came while Sherlock's was pulled aside to set the empty stage. He could smell the spices of the Chinese left on the counter. His bare feet were cold against the floor. In the fridge there would be containers of body parts and the microwave was only permissible for human use so many days out of the month.
John could lose all this. He'd never really thought of it before, never considered it a possibility. But if Sherlock was married it stood to reason that at any time the man might decide he didn't want to live with John anymore and leave him for his marriage bed. The idea of it just felt... wrong on a level both conscious and subconscious. It wasn't as though John didn't have alternatives if something like that should happen but somehow the thought had never occurred to him that he might one day wake up and all the thrill and excitement of their life together be stolen away on the pretense of love. Sherlock was John's constant, something reliable and always there. Something, apparently, to be taken for granted. The thought didn't settle any of the cold bile stirring in his gut.
Never once did it occur to John that Sherlock might be the first of them to move on. Not once. Even the times he teased about Ms. Adler stopped short of what Sherlock finding love might actually mean for them. No more unscheduled performances at home, no more arguments over the kitchen, no more simple understanding that when Lestrade called it was meant as an invitation for both of them. They'd have to coordinate if they were apart. Sherlock didn't think about things like that when on the run. He'd forget about John. That's just the way he was--obsessive and single-minded and neglectful when busy. If this was all some joke about being married to his work, John was going to strangle him. He felt positively ill just thinking about all the things a marriage could mean which could disrupt the life they loved.
Sherlock was supposed to be the selfish one. Gripping the glass in his hand, tap turned till only a trickle of cold water spilled out, John was having a hard time reconciling that with the flowing thoughts pouring out of his head.
+-+
John sputtered awake, dreams forgotten as his mind shifted from fantasy to reality as if by a flipped switch. He was on the couch, face down in a cushion with half his body hanging off the side and onto the floor. He didn't remember laying down let alone sleeping and yet the sun was falling in through the windows with day having followed the night somewhere between headache and heartache. He groaned, turning his face into the squeaky leather. He hadn't slept near enough to escape the stupid worries that had made the initial sleep so difficult to find.
Taking his primitive sounds as an affirmative, Sherlock left John to his couch repose, tapping his heels with the day's paper before dropping it on the table in an arching trajectory towards the kitchen doors. John could hear him fill the kettle and set it to boil. "The mirtazapine is in the bathroom," he called back to the tinkle of glassware.
John knew exactly where his antidepressants where, thank you. It was more than a little insulting to be reminded. "You'd know," he shot back, knowingly childish but far from caring. He could see Sherlock arching his brow in his mind's eye as he let his face rub against the cool upholstery.
"Testy this morning, aren't we?" the detective said in jest. There was more rummaging in the kitchen, maybe toast, maybe leftovers. The crinkle and thwaps of breakfast were a menagerie of possibilities. "You don't normally have trouble sleeping after a case."
"Yeah, well, I did this time. Just not feeling so great.
Sherlock was quiet, the sounds from the kitchen muting slightly as well. John sighed into the rumble of traffic outside, the permeation of the city sounds within the silence that were no different from the sounds of his own breathing. The toast popped up--toast it was then. He hadn't been hungry but he felt he could be persuaded. "Couple slices for me too, yeah?"
"Will you take the mirtazapine and get some sleep if I do? As a sleep aid," he followed up quickly, as though heading off the argument he could feel himself instigating. "I'm not insinuating anything. Though you were a bit off your game last night."
John rolled over, pulling a pillow over his eyes as he sank more comfortably into the couch on his back with all four limbs safely contained by it. "Just couldn't shut my brain off is all," he explained.
Sherlock scoffed in the other room. "If even I can manage that feat now and then, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to."
"You talk to your wife like that?" John asked, chuckling despite himself. "Gatta tell ya, it gets on most people's tits when you go the whole better-than-you route in a conversation."
There was silence in the kitchen, the popping of more toast almost too loud in the absence of other movement and speech. John peeked out under the pillow but could see nothing but shadows in the other room through the painted glass walls. He heard as much as saw Sherlock pace around in the kitchen getting the tea service set and plates added to a tray. He closed his eyes and pretended not to have been watching while Sherlock placed the tray on the coffee table and set a heavy mug and plate on top of the piles of papers and magazines. There was the rattle of a pill case and then Sherlock was standing again, over to the table in the den to sit before his laptop per usual with his own light meal. John peeked once more and glared slightly at the precisely jam-brushed toast, the perfect milky tea and, grudgingly, the aged prescription bottle with his name on it which was more often shared between them.
"Get some sleep," Sherlock said around his first crumbly bite, eyes locking on the screen before him and back-lit by the sunlight streaming in through the windows. "You're annoying."
"You're married."
Sherlock shrugged. "It hadn't made a difference before you knew, I don't see why it should make a difference now."
With a long sigh and no strength to fuel a go at it, John sat up and unscrewed the cap to the medication to swallow with a hearty swig of tea. There was no arguing with Sherlock and no guarantee of a peaceful sleep to be had even if he did. It seemed to please Sherlock either way as he watched and made sure the pill was swallowed before his gaze fell back to his laptop.
John frowned at the pill case, a rouge thought running through his mind as he set it down next to the Times and the Telegraph. "You didn't swap out the pills and just get me to take something else did you?"
Sherlock shrugged, hiding a smirk behind his mug. "I guess we'll know in about fifteen minutes."
John threw his pillow at him. They both grumbled and laughed. Fifteen minutes later John was out cold on the couch, drooling against the leather in a dreamless sleep that felt like a black hole had opened up inside him and engulfed everything he'd ever kept within his mind.
At three he woke up in his own bed, tucked under covers with a glass of water at his bedside and not a memory in recognition for how he'd ended up there.