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Preparation. It was the word that kept jumping up; a wedding, it transpires, doesn't happen overnight. There are weeks of painstaking labour, of sampling colours and and cakes and dresses and tuxes. The location had to be sorted out, the theme and the music (though that'll figure itself out, just waiting for a stroke of genius) - in short, there's a lot be done. They're barely halfway through their bookings, where Mary and John leave Sherlock behind for hours at a time and he still hasn't managed to switch anything off, because there's just so much to do. He's busying himself every second of every day because if he stops he's not sure what he'll do to himself, so he works and he works and he works and it's stressful, it is, but he's found a charming few videos on youtube that tell one how to fold serviettes into swans and that's obviously going to be useful.

There's a considerable amount of work put into, and it's just another day. A day deemed exceptional by a select few, yes, but it's still a collection of hours that people have designated as special and worth remembering, worth throwing thousands of pounds down the drain just to ensure that that one day remains perfect and it doesn't make any sense, really, but that's only when he over thinks about which shade of lilac accentuates the bridesmaids without drowning them in unflattering colour (and he's over thinking a lot these days, falling into unexpected visits to his mind palace before he's deposited out minutes, seconds, hours later). He's trying to watch that, warily steering clear of the tell-tell signs where he's about to fall back into his mind without any true warning.

It's jarring, like a jagged piece of glass that suddenly sinks into your skin (only it's so much more because this is his mind, his mind, and it's getting difficult to push it away, it's getting difficult to ignore because it's there and he's worried but it's not the time, this just isn't the time) but it's not as though he finds it difficult to hide internal struggles.

Having done today's tasks (writing out invitations is an exceedingly dull business), Sherlock has decided to give himself a congratulatory drink of scotch. Or more accurately, a mind numbing glass of scotch. Or three. Having just slipped three nicotine patches over his arm and underneath his dress shirt, he feels as though he can get through most anything tonight tries to throw his way.

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[ Anything, Sherlock?

Whether or not he's rethinking that choice in mental wording, it's too late to change the course of events currently forthcoming. A destiny has been created and henceforth set to be realized. Tides have turned, suns have failed to rise, prophecies have come to light that were thought hidden from the world for centuries.

Or maybe that's just John coming up the stairs. Yeah, wait, sorry, definitely John: quiet all the way up so as to avoid alerting Mrs. Hudson of his presence and all too happy to give opening and closing the door the same treatment. He is a man on a mission of the utmost gravity and where the hell is Sherlock, he bloody lives here. ]

... Sherlock?

[ Things are off- they have been since he came back, of course, and they're trying to keep them more the same than not, but off-- but John could admit that it's good on every possible level to walk up these stairs aware that Sherlock Holmes is alive at the end of them. Will that wear off in time? Seems like a wearing-off sort of... thing. Could ask his therapist next time around, he supposes.

All right, he's stalling a little with the loss of motion. Time to forge onward into the flat like he owns it, which is familiar enough for him anyway. Knock knock, army doctor at your service. ]

_{[ The residual sounds of a violin playing a tune John's never heard before suddenly and violently stops; an eerie screech of strings and too much pressure before it's pulled back. He should have been listening, but his head was elsewhere and his hands were busy constructing a universe around sounds and melodies, things that fit the man, things that fit the woman, things that fit the two combined. It has to work together, it all has to coexist; it has to sounds perfect, but it's difficult and it's distressing but there's a distinct feelings of calm there, too, and he's not sure why everything is so off kilter within his head, all he really knows is that he needs to get this melody out before it's simply gone.

He writes it down on his music sheet, question marked and then shuffled away for the next time he's composing the most important piece of his life. ]}

Mm.

_{[ Nothing more than a soft syllable to confirm where he is, whiling the time away with wedding paraphernalia and colour swatches, the invitations now ready to send out stacked on the kitchen table threatening to topple over should something so much as nudge the table aside.

The cases have taken a backseat, and the all things wedding have been pushed to the forefront of both his mind and his flat - there are various flowers scattered around the room, all arranged in certain ways; some with ribbons and others with elaborate lace and silk pulling the stalks together.

It's all very charming, but when it's in Sherlock Holmes' flat, it almost seems menacing. ]}

[ More surreal than any man come back from the dead, even months later, is... this. Sherlock's taken to his best man duties like a fish to water. A bit more like a shark, really, when John thinks about it. Can't stop moving. There's always something on his list: the flowers, the venue, the music, the bloody centerpieces for the tables.

Sherlock Holmes is more or less putting the entire wedding together singlehandedly, and nothing about it is being dissolved in acid for an experiment along the way. He's never seen Sherlock arrange flowers a day in his life (though in fairness, he only had about a year and a half before that faked death to see an opportunity for it- but no, no, staying in the present, moving forward). John never particularly cared about what "represented the right message" in a bridal bouquet. A flower is a flower is a flower: put it next to another one, add a bow, there you go, it's suitable. Drinks all around for a job well done.

It's with a continued caution that he makes his way into the flat completely and stands, fists at his sides, fingers shifting. A stranger in his used-to-be-home, now not-quite home away from home, ever increasingly concerned that he'll pop in one day and find Sherlock accidentally crushed to death by an attempted ice sculpture of a swan.

He clears his throat. ]

Right. Hello. Sorry, d'you need me to- come back later? Composing and all. [ That much, he remembers. The composing, Sherlock hating an interruption. He never particularly wanted to interrupt to start with, of course. ]

_{[ John, with all of his abilities and skills, is useless when it comes to... well, anything wedding related. He offers the most noncommittal responses whenever asked direct questions, and it would be maddening if Sherlock put any stock into his opinion with regards to how this wedding is going to look - it might not be his, but the layout, the theme and just about everything else is; they're all his ideas (and yes, fine, Mary helped) and it's honestly coming together quite nicely.

Who knows, when this consulting detective thing falls through for whatever reason, he definitely has a flourishing career as a wedding planner (and should that fail, the world is always crying out for a creative florist).

Having promptly hid the Watson's wedding march, Sherlock paces towards his chair and drops down into it, kicking a leg over the other in order to get comfortable and not look as though he's slouching (which he probably will be in roughly six minutes time if left to his own devices). ]}

No, you've already interrupted me. What did you want?

_{[ Because that would be more annoying. To be interrupted, having the melody all but snatched away from him and then being left to mourn the fact that he wasn't quick enough to get the whole thing down - no, there's the edges of a frown for a prolonged second before it's smoothed away, fingers tapping impatiently against the arm of his chair. When John continues to stand, Sherlock pointedly looks over toward John's chair - it's an obvious hint that even the most dimwitted should be able to follow. Hopefully. ]}

[ Never underestimate the power of awkward dimwittedness.

Give him like ten seconds to put those two and two together for four. He will then take a seat in his chair the way he always has and possibly always will, and move right onto the pressing topic of the evening. Because frankly, he's a bit short on fucks to give about whether or not it's embarrassing right now. He thinks he'd be more concerned with it if he got up to the reception and made a spectacular failure of himself, actually.

Can't have that. ]

Mary's made her insistence clear on a "proper" first dance, at the reception. [ Full suspicious invisible quotation around the proper, of course. It's- standing and swaying and occasionally moving in a circle. Why does she want something more proper than the basics from him?

Oh, he'll follow through on it, but it's one of those situations where he follows a beloved person's steering without actually knowing... why. It's usually more trouble to know, when it comes to the people in his life. ]

_{[ If there's one thing Sherlock doesn't underestimate, it's dimwittedness.

Thankfully John manages to take the hint, even if it takes him far too many 'Mississippis' to get there. Sherlock would think about that in more detail, but at this point any distraction is welcome and apparently that distraction has come in the form of one John Watson (mercifully post-moustache-shave) and now that he's actually looking, he's noticed that he's uptight. He's got something to ask, in fact it's practically burning a hole through his tongue, biting it in - and then it's out there, question spoken without actually having been asked.

Well, he's not going to settle for that. No, he'd be a fool to let John get away with such a pitiful attempt at enlisting his help.

Sherlock makes a face - something akin to vague interest, a little quirk of the brow and a downward tilt of the lips before he looks back and sips at his half empty glass of scotch. ]}

That's unfortunate, given the obvious fact that you have two left feet. Though I suppose it's expected, isn't it? Tradition and all that.

_{[ Literally spits the word 'tradition' out of his mouth. It's just a dirty, dirty thing. Blindly following what our ancestors did because it's the thing to do - it's just not his preverbal glass of scotch. ]}

[ Gross Sherlock, spit much.

Mary's just got an eye for some traditional things, really. Tradition and normalcy. John can appreciate that (no he can't, but yes, yes he can). She's equally as likely to be fine with something unusual at the drop of a pin, but overall he can rely on her to have some bloody common sense.

Where would he even be without her?

John goes for the full disapproving frown at "two left feet", thank you very much, kind dickhead, but doesn't brook a protest because... it's kind of true... shut up. The rest, though, he feels free to latch onto. Definitely not for sassing purposes. Of course not. ]

Think you fit enough distaste into that one? It seems like you got through saying the word without splitting your tongue, so I thought I'd give you the chance to try again if you like.

_{[ Where would he be, indeed?

Tradition is just that. Tradition. There's a lot of it in England, with the royal family sitting inside their luxurious prison whiling away their time doing the duties the country's placed upon them; it's more about presentation than it is about power, because being king or queen doesn't stand for much when you have people like Mycroft in the world, running the whole show from backstage. England would continue on without its monarchy, but it's something akin to a mascot by now.

He'd almost find it interesting, if he weren't so utterly bored by the whole prospect at a reasonably young age. Mikey always had been something of a royalist.

The smile that flickers is entirely mocking and it's stopped before it can become anything more than genuine amusement. ]}

No, I feel as though I got my point across, alongside my DNA.

_{[ He'll just take another drink in the meantime, because don't think he didn't notice how you decided to keep quiet about the two left feet comment. Very telling, that. ]}

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