Let The Shadows Win

I Could Love A Monster

"Who was that?" Mary wondered, walking in so as to grab her toothbrush from the sink. She gave John that stereotypical glare, the one she wore when she knew he was in trouble, through their reflections in the bathroom mirror. John gave her his best look of innocence, shrugging his shoulders and trying to get past her and into the bedroom. However Mary sidestepped, now scrubbing vigorously at her teeth as she tried to keep her husband here where she could interrogate him properly.
"Who was what? I was just in there brushing my teeth." John lied quickly. Mary hummed doubtfully, spitting into the sink and turning towards her husband, still with the frothy toothpaste around the corners of her mouth. John gave her an innocent little frown, for he still wanted to at least attempt to upkeep the fallacy that he was following her previous instructions. John knew that through this entire week he was pleasing his wife by keeping away. She had requested that he keep Sherlock out his life, and as much as he wanted to keep her happy he also wanted to keep himself happy as well. Sherlock's release was like a breath of fresh air, and only when he was with him could he see how truly hectic and unsatisfying his real life had become. He hadn't been avoiding Sherlock as per Mary's instructions; he had been alone because Sherlock had evidently tried to avoid him. As if he had some sort of right to decide what was healthy and safe for the both of them, as if he suddenly considered himself a psychiatrist just because he had taken to spending so much time with men in such a profession.
"You weren't brushing your teeth, John, I'm not an idiot. I could hear you talking." Mary pointed out, nodding towards John's phone that was sitting on the counter still.
"I was...singing. I do that sometimes." John defended quickly, his face blushing red as he saw that this lie was spiraling down the drain.
"You never sing, oh come on John! You really want me to do the final test?" Mary warned. John groaned, knowing that the 'final test' would obviously be some sort of breath check. If John had wanted her to believe he was doing something other than talking to Sherlock he would obviously need to think of a better, more discreet bathroom task, something in which the smell of minty freshness, or lack thereof, would not be the damning evidence.
"Ya, alright, alright fine. I was on the phone." John admitted with a groan.
"With who?" Mary wondered, dropping her toothbrush and picking up John's phone before he had the time to react. Of course he knew it would be no use to further try to lie, yet it might have been a bit more manageable if he was able to ease her into the idea rather than her just swiping through his calls to see that Sherlock's name was just about every single one of them. Including of course, the most recent outgoing call. It wasn't as if John was calling Sherlock every five minutes, yet his phone history made it look a lot worse than it really was simply because he never really called anyone else. And so, when seeing Sherlock's name lined up a good ten or so times in a row, it was all Mary could do but throw the phone aside, lean on the counter, and rub her eyes miserably.
"My God John, you've gotten obsessed." She decided in a defeated sort of way, as if she could already tell that there was something going on her that she hadn't previously suspected. And John wanted to tell her, not out of easing her mind but out of spite instead. For all of these accusations she was making, well it might actually be empowering to see her crumble out of her all powerful shell once in a while.
"I'm not obsessed. I'm just trying to catch up, it's been so long since we've seen each other and I just..."
"There's nothing to catch up on! John what can he tell you, what food he was served? He was in a prison for God's sake, there's no story there!" Mary exclaimed in a voice that she could tell was a little bit too loud for this time of night. Rosie was, after all, still asleep. John sighed heavily, shaking his head and knowing of course that Mary was either too smart to fool or too dumb to understand.
"Fine, alright. Fine. I'm calling him because I like to talk to him, and because he's got no one else to talk to but me. He gets lonely." John admitted. Mary just laughed, filling up a little cup with sink water so as to wash the excess toothpaste from her mouth before spitting into the sink and laughing once more, as if the very idea of John's excuse was something of a joke. As if she didn't believe the truth once more.
"John, you're lucky there are people who love you." She decided with an almost condescending laugh, as if she was reminding him to treasure the things he had, as if she thought that she was worth his appreciation. John blinked, stepping back towards the towel rack in something of shock, for whatever she was setting up he surely wasn't going to like. What did she mean by that?
"I'm sorry?" John muttered.
"Well, if you didn't have us you'd be just like him. Lonely, supposedly, and clinging onto the one person he still remembers from his past life. I mean it's no shock really. Who could ever love such a monster?" Mary muttered with a sadistic little laugh, drumming her fingers against the bathroom counter and watching her husband for his response. There was still that obscene smile on her face, that smile that made it look as if she was expecting him to laugh. Yet that was enough, that was just the breaking point. There was no point in hiding it anymore, not now that Mary was about to go insulting Sherlock for the rest of her life without ever knowing how much he meant to John. And so, as his face grew redder and his fists grew tighter...
"I could." John said finally, his mouth twitching into a threatening smile before falling back angrily in mere seconds. "I could, Mary. And I would. In fact I did, and that's the big secret, isn't it? The one you've been trying to pry out of me all this time. I did love a monster."
"You mean..." Mary blinked, suddenly her weight falling even more dependently onto the vanity in which she now perched. Her face went rather pale, and yet it was not her face that worried John. It was his own, in the reflection of the mirror. He could see it now, staring at him with an expression that was not usually on his face, an expression he hardly even wore. In fact the only time he had ever seen such an expression was when he had seen death, it was the look he had worn when trapped in that freezer, it was the look that Sherlock wore when he had John pinned to the bed with a knife to his throat. It was the look of finally being in control, of dismantling your captor until finally you had the upper hand. It was the amusement of the fallacy of restriction that was finally coming apart, the look you wore to mourn your days of stupidity as well as rejoice in the promise of your future freedoms. It was the look when you realized that there was one simple way to redeem yourself, whether it  be by reminding someone of their own power, or holding someone so helplessly under your deadly grasp, or by merely speaking the very words they had been so afraid to hear. A look that John had learned from Sherlock, now practiced on his wife in the hour of their earthquake. 
"Yes." John agreed flatly. "That's what I mean." With that he tried to walk off, yet one of Mary's loose and slacking hands grabbed at his wrist so as to keep him here. Even when she was on the brink of losing her power, she still was looking for a way to get the full story.
"John you were in love with him?" she whispered in a very broken voice. John took a deep breath, shaking his wife's hand off so as to stand taller and more dominant than he would have otherwise. He liked it when she felt as though she had no control; he liked the feeling when he could finally tell her to stay away. And if this was the feeling of ecstasy he got when he was able to break her heart, imagine how euphoric the divorce was going to be!
"Yes Mary, I was. That's how I could forgive him for trying to kill me, that's how I could wait so long until I finally chose to settle down. He was once my everything, Mary." John muttered.
"And he still is, isn't he?" Mary clarified, tears running down her face, this time tears that would go unnoticed and uncared for. It was at this moment that John realized just how little he cared for his wife's emotions, because they all seemed to arise at the perfect moment to censor whatever it was that he wanted to do. It seemed as though she was always perfectly upset when John wanted to be happy, or defensive when he wanted to stray away towards the things he most loved. This time John started towards the door and went unrestricted. He knew that there was no way to answer that without lying, and he knew that if he did answer it truthfully then he would be in much more trouble than he realized just now. It was better now to just play it off, to let Mary think what she thinks and go on living his life without worrying about ever clarifying or not. There would come a time when Mary understood that John still did love Sherlock, yet now would not be that time. Now was the time for agonizing speculation, in which the only one person who knew the truth was also the one person who would never divulge such information lightly.
"Goodnight Mary." John said simply, and with that he went down the stairs to the living room, knowing full well that after a reveal like that he would never be allowed in the same bed as her. Besides, he didn't want her crying to keep him up. His eye lids were already sagging after such an emotional and exciting day, and in his dreams would be of course the universe in which he would rather live in. In his dreams he would be met by Sherlock, where in reality he would be met by only solitude.