Help me, Mary
It did not stand to reason that if Mary loved John, and Sherlock loved John, and John forgave them both of every evil…that they were not all together.
Now it made some sense, what with John’s hang-ups with social convention, as well as his impractical want of family life, that he would marry a woman. Things were already tough on his Mum when Harry came out, and after all John put her through just by existing (re: Afghanistan, flights of rage, detective work, adrenaline junkie) it was practically transparent that he wouldn’t want to add another social faux-pas to the list.
And it was a faux-pas. Sherlock knew that much. Having spent the entirety of his life on the outside, looking in, studying—being gay, being asexual, being trans, anything that went against social grain was inherently a faux-pas regardless of truth. A left-handedness that needed to be explained. No, it’s not the sign of the devil. Yes, it’s normal. Yes, sometimes people are born like that. Just like Sherlock was born with his overly particular brain and John was born…with a heart that burned.
Mary came to warm her hands around that flame. It crackled…whispered lovely things like “I’d die to protect you” and “I’ll always, always love you.” God, Mary had shot Sherlock through the chest, lied to John about her past, and still…still… John Watson. As constant as a heartbeat. As necessary as one too.
So, it made sense that when someone, a female someone, came into his life with the same spark as Sherlock, he jumped at the chance.
Poor choice of words, perhaps. Gauche. Off-hand. Left-footed.
Sherlock didn’t let himself think that grief—grief over him, actually—had cemented that choice. Irrelevant information. Or overwhelming. Whatever the case, John Watson (talented, constant, not-boring, utterly best) and Mary Watson (dangerous, brilliant, exciting, liar) were the only two people—outside one Jim Moriarty—who could possibly hope to understand what Sherlock wanted.
But John and Mary were not in his head, and what actually came out of his mouth was a great deal of nothing. There he stood in their bedroom, both of them groggy as they noted his presence (Mary less so—she was more curious than groggy).
“Sherlock?” John prompted.
A teleprompter. What Sherlock wouldn’t pay to have a teleprompter. And writers. People who could make something convincing for him to say, beyond the script of no-doubt tactless slush that threatened to break out. Never go with your gut—that was something he’d learned the hard way in matters of the heart. Always tested out on one Molly Hooper. Sometimes met with a resounding smack now that she was developing a backbone. Say whatever comes after that first remark.
“You are both important to me.”
“Yes, well, I rather gathered that after you killed a man to save me and John from pain.” Mary smiled. Her platinum hair was a little matted from sleep, but not sex, Sherlock noted. John was still blinking at him.
“Baker Street isn’t working out.” He tried again.
“What?” John in the morning was slow. How he had survived in the military was comical, but not a mystery. Adrenaline. Caffeine when available. Stress (adrenaline part two). Domesticity had made him frightfully slow on the draw.
“Sherlock,” Mary scooted up. One of her knees was ruddy, as if she’d been scratching it in her sleep. Her nightgown was nothing like what he thought an ex-operative might wear. It was one of those matched sets. A 1960s peignoir in powder blue. It brought out the richness of her veins and the soft blush of her lips without all that vivid lipstick on. A strand of hair curled behind her ear. Sherlock wanted to follow it with his finger. “Are you lonely?”
“Ridiculous.” He scoffed.
“Are you in our bedroom for a case?” John slipped his gun out from under his pillow, fully alert. “Do we need to leave?”
“No.” Sherlock crossed the room and took the gun from John, setting it up on the tall-boy wardrobe. John was only wearing a pair of boxers—Scottish plaid, maybe ironic—and he was a tapestry of scars like this. Too many things to analyze—the solid nature of his build, the soft dusting of tawny hair on his sternum and leading below his navel…
“Are you checking out my husband?” Mary was grinning at him and Sherlock just blinked.
“Mary!”
“I was deducing.” Sherlock tried.
“You were deducing what exactly?” She was eager now, crawling over to them to watch John squirm under the attention, like always, and for Sherlock to freeze. It was not often that he was caught so off guard he couldn’t at least bullshit, but something about John’s confusion and Mary’s utter certainty…
“You approve.” He turned on her. She was still smiling on the bed. “Why do you approve? And of what? Are you interested? Yes—but not enough to start something… Are you afraid you’ll lose him if you don’t? No, no, you’re too confident for that. You know John doesn’t walk away…”
“Hang on—” John started.
“—John. John doesn’t walk away.” Sherlock breathed. “Of course!”
“I feel like I’m missing something here.” John shook his head and sat back down, boxers riding up his thighs. Mary was smiling like the cat that ate the canary, beak and feathers and all.
“John, I am upset with you?” Sherlock attempted.
“What?” John looked genuinely startled by the confession. Those big blue eyes took in Sherlock’s whole face like a painting, looking for secret meaning and motifs. Only what he allowed was telegraphed onto it usually, but he was trying—God, he was trying to express today. To emote. “What’s going on?”
There was a great big margin of the world Sherlock simply couldn’t attach to.
But first there was Redbeard. There was John.
And he supposed, there was Mary too—because she was John’s joy.
And whether or not he was ever jealous of that, Sherlock was still John’s. Period.
“I am upset with you.” It sounded less like a question that time. “You have had your time to be upset with me for faking my death and all that came with it…but in your grief and then your anger you left me absolutely no time to tell you…I’ve been. I am. You see I am…”
It had been daft and utterly easy faking all this with Janine. God, he had proposed! He had kissed her and made love to her and adjusted for her. John had never wanted him to adjust. John had loved him from the start, for exactly what it said on the tin.
Maybe that’s why he sat down on their marital bed, reached over and pressed his lips to John’s. Sherlock missed, he caught John by the cheek the first time, then the corner of his mouth, his chin, God—why did people do these things with their eyes closed?
Suddenly a soft hand was in his hair, guiding him into a kiss. Long fingernails—Mary. John’s lips were tangy from the morning, but his mouth was so soft.
When he’d been with Janine, he’d been acting. He had been everything he thought a perfect boyfriend should be. Now? Acting would be seen right through, and Sherlock was bereft. There was no script for this. How to kiss your married friend while his wife watched. Horrible, and almost certainly the set-up to some bisexual, kinky pornographic movie. Sherlock was more interested in…how to be what he needs so he doesn’t push you away. How to tell him that his wedded bliss is keeping you on the knife’s edge of sanity.
John’s lips went still. He leaned their foreheads together, clearly only able to keep his nerve because of Mary’s soothing lips pressed to his shoulder. “Sherlock…”
And then it’s like he’s been pulled through the eye of a needle, speared by the sharp finial of a building on his drop from space. Found—spotted—ran through. Mary leads his face to hers with the guidance of a single fingertip. It is stronger than an ox. They kiss over John’s shoulder, hear his breath hitch together, and Sherlock thinks he might actually understand.
They could have been everything, him and John. Then he gave Moriarty his everything instead. He stole it from John. Stole their potential, stole two years of his life, and has been paying back penance in pennies ever since. And Mary? Mary encouraged him. Through every step back through transgression and grief, she was there with a witty remark and a push for John. Go, solve that case. Get your groove back. Be right next to Sherlock Holmes.
And Sherlock, never bothering to learn the dance of a real relationship, interpreted everything by the rules. Predetermined, strict rules. Mary was playing a completely different game. Oh fuck, Sherlock loved a game.
Her lips were soft, tasting faintly of some grape lip mask from last night’s skincare. She was smiling onto his mouth between kisses. Getting her way? Smug? Happy? The emotion was difficult to deduce, mainly because it was new to him. She pulled away, her hands stroking John’s chest as he looked askance—flushed, his heart rate spiking, his cock hard. Tossed somewhere between good old English rage and longing.
“You kissed my wife.”
“She kissed me.”
“You kissed Sherlock.” Mary murmured into John’s ear, and he went red down to his sternum. “You want to do it again.”
It might be a game, it might be everything he wanted, but the fragile nature of the moment started to kick at his ribs. No, that was his heart. Sherlock’s throat went tight. It was panic—a physiological response—and damn him. Damn his mortal shell and the wicked brain that was processing, buffering, stalling, analyzing.
Sherlock was halfway down the street when he realized he probably should have said goodbye.