Work Text:
In the end, they hadn’t planned much. They agreed easily enough on Molly, Greg, Mrs. Hudson, and Rosie, with Mycroft as witness. Then Sherlock, looking up from gov.uk, said, “Mike,” and John, fatally preoccupied for the moment with the question of whether it wouldn’t be better to invite Mr. and Mrs. Holmes after all, and if so, whether he hadn’t better also invite Harry, answered, “who?”
“Mike Stamford,” Sherlock said, adding with a half-smile, “I told him I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for.”
Sherlock’s quiet flights of sentiment still caught John short sometimes.
Mike agreed instantly when, forty-five minutes later, they separated themselves for long enough to call and ask him to be their second witness.
John insisted on giving proper notice. “This is not as though we’re running off to Vegas, Sherlock.” And then, at the suspicious intensification of Sherlock’s attention, “No. We are not going to Vegas.”
Sherlock primly insisted on new suits. “We all have our own sense of propriety, John.” Later, standing next to Sherlock in front of a tailor’s mirror in matching coattails for the second time, John suspected he knew what Sherlock was really on about. Mary had appreciated the suits the first time, too.
They considered Angelo’s for the lunch afterwards, but one afternoon, sitting in the front window with a candle dripping down a wine bottle on the table in front of them, and Rosie in her baby chair joyously gumming gnocchi, Sherlock turned to John and said, “too much?”
“Too much,” John agreed, and they tasked Mycroft with finding an appropriate and suitably circumspect restaurant.
They booked a late morning appointment at the local register office, and Sherlock knew a jeweler. “Did you help her track down some stolen diamonds?” John asked as he pushed open the shop door.
Sherlock smiled as the jeweler bustled over immediately to help them. “No. I admired her work.”
When the little box was ready, Sherlock tucked it carefully away in his Belstaff. The next day, John watched him surreptitiously touching his pocket now and again, and once, slipping his hand inside.
It was past time.
~
As minimal as their plan was, it went out the window the morning of.
In the final, quiet, post-breakfast minutes, Sherlock’s phone chirped. Sherlock’s eyes widened as it chirped several more times in succession. He cast off his robe and dove for his coat and scarf, calling, “Come on, John!”
John, half into his own coat as Sherlock paced impatiently, presented a pyjama-clad Rosie to a scandalized Mrs. Hudson. “What, on your wedding day?”
“It’s better than that, Mrs. Hudson,” Sherlock said, radiating demonic glee. “A double locked room murder. Two murders. Two locked rooms. Tenth floor of the building, no balconies. It’s Christmas!”
They were only five minutes late, sprinting into Rathbone Place with the rings, which Sherlock, hands braced on his knees and out of breath, claimed he hadn’t remembered to remove from his pocket. John, panting and rifling his wallet for his identification and the council tax bill he had shoved in and forgotten about, let Sherlock have his white lie. He watched Sherlock stand up, brush off his suit, and fold his coat over his arm. And then he was unable to hold it back. “That was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done!”
They were still laughing as they stood up in front of the registrar to say their vows.
~
They were signing the register when Sherlock put down his pen halfway through his name, stood up, and said, “oh!” He rocked back on his heels with his hands under his chin.
“You have to sign it or it’s not legal, mate,” Mike said, pushing the pen back into Sherlock’s fingers and guiding him back to the table with a chuckle.
“It was the antiques dealer.” Sherlock threw down the pen on his completed signature. “I knew there was something!”
John hastily scrawled his name and the date. He thought back to the crime scenes. It had to have been the chairs, and forensics would be wrapping up their work and releasing the bodies any minute. He looked at Sherlock. “We have to get to that shop now, don’t we?”
And they were off.