A/N: This is just a warning to let you all know that I know next to nothing about music. So forgive me for my ignorance; if you see any mistakes, please, let me know.
Dedicated to the fabulous Jasmine, because she betas for me last minute...and also because she is perfect. How can you not gift perfect?
Thank you to Sam for betaing!
You never say the word love.
You never say it, but you hear it.
You never, ever say it, but you hear it in the pull of your fingers across the taut harp string of his spine, in the feel of his long fingers plucking at your bones like you are that violin in his hands, like the music he makes of you is for him and only him, and the music you make of him is nothing.
He has always been the best at everything he does, and loving is no exception.
Love.
It seems too pedestrian for this. Too boring and weak, and he's Sherlock fucking Holmes; how in God's name could you ever expect anyone to sum up what they feel for Sherlock Holmes in four bloody letters? Nothing about Sherlock is small or mediocre or typical; he is the lullaby that soothes the tidal wave of your fear in the early hours of the morning, the tenor that sings his song into your mouth so that the notes stain your lips, the violinist who has finally learnt that his smile bends like the bow of your heart.
Sometimes he looks at you, eyebrows furrowed, face still as stone, angles sharp as those piercing, stabbing violinsolos.
"John," he says, all baritone voice and syllabic symphonies. "John."
"What?" You always say it with a hint of stop fucking bothering me but what you mean is don't sing my name like a gospel choir, it hurts too much.You are not strong enough to ignore the melody he is.
"You're staring."
Of course you are – you always are.
And then comes that day, the final show, when the red velvet curtains dangle threateningly at each side, ready to snap shut and end the concert you've been enjoying for far too long, and he wantsyou to look. The spotlight shines on him, and he calls to you, for you.
He stands alone atop that building and stares down at you as he has always done, an angel from on high that you could never really conceive, never truly understand; he is the notes scrawled across the music sheets you never cared to learn, the staves and the treble clefs all tangled together and calling your name, saying look. Saying listen.
"Goodbye, John."
There is a crescendo. The swelling in your heart and the blood pounding in your ears, the beat of everything in you that matches the thumpthumpthump of his name in your chest, the glorious peak of the music of Sherlock&John and he takes one last bow, and the crowd are screaming his name, someoneis screaming his name and it can't be you because you are too busy watching the roses fall at his feet as he jumps and –
Silence. Always silence.
And solos were always the saddest songs, weren't they?
(You never said love. But you meant it.
By God, you meant it.)