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The first thing Sherlock said to John when he walked into the room at visiting hours was, "Harry's rather shorter than I expected."
John made a noncommittal noise and shifted in his bed; the tubes resisted his movement and he winced at the pull of the tape on his skin. Sherlock gave him a careful once-over, probably cataloguing his pain reaction or something, as he moved to the plastic bedside chair.
They stared at each other for a long while.
"Mrs. Hudson sends her regards," said Sherlock finally.
John nodded, letting a smile tug at his lips. "She's not too worried, is she?"
Five seconds of thoughtfulness. Emotion took time to interpret. "She's been making a lot of tea," was what Sherlock settled for.
That startled a chuckle out of John, which pulled at his stitches, which made him groan a little. When he looked up again, Sherlock's brow had a minute crease in it. The same look he had when he was working something out.
"Did it hurt a lot?"
John considered lying for a split second. "Yes," he said.
He saw Sherlock's eyes flick to his shoulder.
"Not as much as that. I was expecting it when it came, this time."
"You're recovering well, though. Blood pressure and heart rate at acceptable levels, wound knitting as expected, no infection."
John raised his eyebrow.
"I got a look at your chart after they moved you from intensive care."
"Ah. Of course you did."
"I'm sorry I wasn't able to see you until now."
John blinked. "This is the first day they've let me have visitors besides my family."
"They wouldn't believe I was your brother. I mean, I said you were adopted and tried to produce paperwork but they still wouldn't go for it."
John closed his eyes for a moment. Naturally Sherlock had tried to con his way into Intensive Care. Probably an opportunity to sneak in unnoticed hadn't arisen, either.
"And since when have they put guards up at the entrance to that wing, anyway?" Sherlock continued.
"It's bloody unfair, isn't it, the way they protect the seriously ill." John picked absently at the corner of some tape across his wrist, but it began to itch so he stopped.
"We should really get married."
John stared at the red mark on his wrist. "I'm sorry, what?"
Sherlock stretched out in the chair, crossing his impossibly long legs in front of him. "Then they'd let me in to see you. Imagine if Harry were unable to come. I'm not sure she took a cab here to see you this time, although she frankly should've."
John sighed down at the blanket. Irrationally logical as ever.
"And then you'd be my next-of-kin instead of Mycroft," said Sherlock, staring out the window with his arms crossed over his chest. "That settles it, then."
"Oh, does it?" John asked lightly.
Sherlock gathered up his gangly limbs and sat upright, with purpose. "Let's get married. Once you've recovered," he amended.
"Did I ever have a vote in this? Did I indicate active interest in or approval of your train of thought at any point?" John asked the room at large, which contained only the two of them but there was no harm in trying for outside help. He could press the call button and have a doctor come to confirm him insane.
"John. I know you're ill and heavily medicated, but focus." Sherlock leaned in and squinted intently. "Think of the tax breaks."
John did. Then he also thought about how every time he brought a girl home, Mrs. Hudson would tut and ask if everything was all right at home. He realized with astonishing clarity and calm that he had, in fact, lost this race before he was even out of the gate.
"You rest; I'll look into it," said Sherlock, leaping to his feet. "See you tomorrow," he called from the door, and then he was gone in a swirl of woollen coattails.
***
John was released from hospital on a Wednesday, and on Thursday Sherlock dragged him to the register office to give notice of their intention to get a civil bloody partnership. As John presented his passport for scrutiny and dutifully gave the man at the counter all of his personal information, he felt the same kind of tranquility that came over him whenever he performed difficult surgery. There was a sense of interested detachment, like he wasn't in the room speaking but actually standing in the doorway, watching some poor bastard stand there awkwardly and confirm that he was unemployed but a doctor and a veteran.
"Your appointment is going to be on the 17th, at 11:30 in the morning," said the man at the counter, stamping something official-looking. "You'll need two witnesses. Have a nice day." And he looked over Sherlock's shoulder for the next person in the queue.
"Two witnesses," John echoed as they strolled out into the street. There would be witnesses to this lark.
Sherlock stuffed his hands in his coat pockets. "Mrs. Hudson will have to be one."
John nodded; they'd never hear the end of it otherwise.
"And I think I'll convince Lestrade to be the other."
John shot him a look and was unsurprised to see Sherlock grinning to himself. "You enjoy causing him emotional discomfort far too much."
"No," said Sherlock, picking up the pace as they rounded the corner into Baker Street, "I enjoy it exactly as much as I should."
***
They passed the next fortnight with a robbery case involving two forgers and a gymnast, and the 17th dawned with a kind of unexpected nonchalance. John stared in the bathroom mirror, shaving cream all over his face, for ten minutes before noticing the time and swearing. Sherlock was in the kitchen when he clattered down the stairs, and he blinked at John over the rim of his tea mug.
"You put on a tie, in a frankly disturbing nod to heteronormativity."
John looked down at it. It was grey with some sort of diamond pattern. "I'm getting married today. Thought I'd dress for it a bit."
Sherlock's brow furrowed. Then he put down his mug on a stack of science journals. "You have a point," he said, and made for the sitting room to dig through a box of dusty records. When he pulled a dark pinstriped tie out of its depths and slung it round his neck, John just shook his head.
"Shall we?" he asked, glancing at his watch as Sherlock flung tie ends around haphazardly and somehow wound up with a perfect half-Windsor.
"Coming."
Mrs. Hudson caught them up at the bottom of the stairs and cooed over their grooming while pinning a hat on. It made John's cheeks flush to be fussed over like that and he led the way outside and toward the register office without comment, feeling a twinge from his bad leg.
Lestrade rolled his eyes at them when he saw them but followed them into the office all the same. The ceremony, if it could be called that, was quite satisfactorily straightforward: they had to say, "I declare that I know of no legal reason why we may not register as each other's civil partner. I understand that on signing this document, we will be forming a civil partnership with each other," and then they signed the document in question, and that was it.
"Congratulations," said the registrar.
John and Sherlock looked at each other.
"Are we supposed to kiss?" John asked.
"I'd rather you didn't," said Lestrade. "Is that it?"
"That's it," confirmed the registrar, recapping the pen they'd used and picking up the certificate. "I have to file this."
Lestrade stood up. "I'm very happy for you both, I suppose. At any rate, you deserve each other. Now, I have crimes to solve." He left them with a nod.
Mrs. Hudson dabbed discreetly at her eyes with a tissue. "Oh, boys," she said.
***
When they opened the door to 221B, Sherlock looked down and scooped up a squarish envelope from the floor. He took one glance at its address, snorted and threw it on an end table before going to collapse on the sofa. John plucked it from the table in his wake and blinked at the address: 'To John and Sherlock'.
"It's from Mycroft," Sherlock called from where he was facedown in a cushion.
John tore open the flap and pulled out a cream-coloured card. The front had 'Congratulations' embossed on it and the inside had the same neat penmanship as the envelope (probably from the secretary whose name was not Anthea).
"Dear John and Sherlock," he read, "please accept my heartfelt congratulations on your recent declaration of mutual devotion."
Sherlock snorted.
"I have instructed my secretary to pick out some china for you, which will arrive imminently, but in the meantime please accept this monetary gift. Welcome to the family, John. Fondest regards, Mycroft Holmes." John frowned at the note and then looked inside the envelope once more; there was a folded cheque he'd missed. The sum made him blink several times. Then he put it in his trouser pocket before Sherlock could come steal it and rip it up.
His other pocket chose that moment to buzz violently. He threw the card back on the end table to dig out his phone.
"I've just received a text from Mycroft," he said as he opened it. He squinted at the message. Bloody cryptic as bloody usual. Bloody Holmeses. "What the fuck does he mean by, 'you'll make a lovely baroness'?"
Sherlock sat up abruptly. "That arsehole. That shouldn't even be legal. Did he make it legal?" He patted down his coat for his own mobile and started muttering and pressing buttons. Then he threw the phone at the fireplace, thankfully missing it and hitting the spine of an encyclopedia on the bookshelves beside it.
John couldn't be that easily distracted. "What the hell are you on about? Why am I a baroness?" he demanded in what he liked to think was a commanding, authoritative way.
Sherlock leaped to his feet and stalked toward the kitchen, his scarf trailing angrily behind him. "Just a minor peerage, father's will, can't believe he outwitted me," was all John heard of his mutterings before the wall was between them.
There was a great deal of banging and noises from the microwave, which was almost worrying enough to go inspect the situation, but before John could work up the nerve Sherlock sailed back into the sitting room with two mugs of tea, one of which he thrust at John.
"Sorry we didn't take into account that you'd wind up with Mycroft as a brother-in-law," Sherlock complained as he sank into an armchair and blew on his tea.
John took the chair across from him. "That's quite all right. You get Harry as a sister-in-law. And she doesn't even know about it yet."
Sherlock's face pinched with worry. "Who wins that one, then?"
"I do," John said confidently. "My brother-in-law got me a title. Your sister-in-law might punch you. And then me," he amended.
"You're a baroness," Sherlock pointed out.
"Like hell I am. I'll be addressed as Lord, thank you."
There was a definite twinkle in Sherlock's eyes as he sipped his tea.
John loosened his tie and relaxed in his chair. Not what he'd ever expected of a wedding night. But Sherlock's major talent was not so much deduction as redefining reality as John knew it. "Pub?" he suggested.
Sherlock set down his tea. "There's some kind of match on, isn't there?" 'Match' came out sounding like a dirty word, as though sport were best reviled and its fans locked up.
"Well, obviously," said John, relishing the feel of the word on his tongue.
They made eye contact for a long moment. "Fine," Sherlock said finally, getting up to grab his scarf from wherever it had ended up in the kitchen. "I might as well drink."
"A Watson family tradition," John agreed. "After you, dear."
THE END