When Sherlock’s filters fail, he can’t sieve out data from the outside world, or sequence it, and he experiences what he calls a short circuit.

It doesn’t happen often, and it’s distressing to see; but for a man who defines himself by his clarity, it is pure suffering.

One night I learned one range of sound that helps. I don’t know how it works, and don’t really care; it’s enough to see the signs of strain leaching out of his facial muscles.

A client had given us tickets to a concert, something esoteric, and it coincided with a short circuit. Though I was skeptical—being in public just added the burden of public behaviour—Sherlock was drawn to the music.

He was taut as a piano wire when we entered, speaking curtly and unclearly; every muscle was rigid as we found seats next to only one other concert-goer. He looked utterly miserable, and I wondered why we’d come.

And then the harpsichord began.

Notes poured out sweeter than birdsong, lighter than snowflakes, joyful and patterned as dance.

Glittering flashes of sound in a hundred colours, winking and sparkling like the rhinestone brooch of our elderly concert neighbour. Gradually his entire body relaxed as the harpsichord carded his mind and senses clear again.

I was mildly impressed, but Sherlock? He was basking.

John asked why I never argue with his movie choices anymore. Had I come round to liking them?

His taste in movies remains appalling, but I can’t say that. 

It’s that he always dozes off when we watch a movie on the sofa. He huddles in, and I stroke his head, neck, and shoulders as he relaxes into sleep. 

I trace his laugh lines, the fuzz around his hairline. The scar he still hates to expose. 

If I turn the movie off or down he wakes, so I unplug my mind from it, and soothe John, and wander through memory.

– Bad day? 

– What was your first clue? 

– You’re rereading The Museum of Innocence. Again. You do that when you need comfort reading. 

– Observant git. 

– But it doesn’t seem to be working. 

– And you know this how? 

– Your fingers are white, gripping the book. And I haven’t heard you turn a page in ten minutes. 

– You’re right. Obviously. 

– What’s wrong?

– Wish I knew. I’m just blue. I even feel bad about not having a reason for feeling bad. 

– Don’t bother. It happens. Here, give me that. I’ll read to you. 

– Put on your velvet voice? 

– Just for you.

– Yes. That one. 

The day after the anniversary of their meeting—the anniversary they spent agreeing not to get married—John and Sherlock had to go to a wedding. They weren’t actually part of the day’s festivities; it was, as Sherlock had assured John impatiently, manhandling John into suitably formal dress, for a case. 

From the moment they arrived Sherlock was in a state, though it wasn’t immediately clear to John why he was fretting in the first place. Let alone why he was getting steadily more fretful as the event unfolded.

The church, festooned with flowers and equipped with a row of menacingly amplified musical instruments, was filling with guests. The two of them could hardly blend in, recognizable as they were; and Sherlock was starting to fidget so noticeably that everyone around them, already alerted to his presence, was beginning to stare. 

“There’s a program.” Sherlock sounded desperate, if one can sound desperate while hissing. 

“Well? Seems very sensible. There’s a lot on.” 

“It has an artificial pearl glued to it.”

“Stop, just stop it right now. People can hear you.”

This didn’t have the effect John’d been hoping for; Sherlock only glared around himself more indignantly than before. 

“There are six ushers.” 

“Groomsmen.” 

“Who are all these people, anyway? Will they all take communion? It’ll take all day!”

Continued on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/36756394/chapters/111257215