There was the time you blew up a marinade I'd had in the fridge for five days, letting it settle perfectly for a barbecue the Yard guys were throwing. I spent hours, Sherlock, getting the balance of the spices right, not even knowing the names of some of them. They all mixed up inside my head after awhile in an aromatic, fuzzy blur.
It was the best damn thing I've ever tried to cook, Sherlock, and you went and blew it up in back of the flat next to the bins to see what would happen, because you were bored and I was home late that day and your violin was so out of tune you couldn't unlazy yourself enough to twist the pegs into the right combination of notes, and I wasn't there to make tea for you and force you to eat and there wasn't anyone to swordfight and Lestrade was ill and he was the only one that would give you cases on a rainy Sunday like today when no one can really put up with you, not even me, so you went back out in the rain and you blew my marinade straight up. Thirty feet of prime cut from the butcher around the corner that you say plays chess with his four wives on weekends, cuts horse meat for a little extra money on the side, but you won't say any of these things to his face because even you're not stupid enough to piss off someone with a rack of knives less than a foot away from his dominant hand, so you communicate them in winks and nudges and occasionally sign language, which I don't understand but you use anyway as if I should. Thirty feet of that, straight up the bricks and on the window and on some of the stores opposite but they didn't seem to mind too much because they'd already hit quota.
The police came that day, because some daft old woman across the way heard the boom and thought it was a gunshot, and Mrs. Turner's married ones have been on the break lately and she was afraid they were killing each other and so she called the Yard and Lestrade came because he guessed at once what had happened, though he hadn't been expecting quite so much meat and you said that he laughed and laughed and laughed until tears came into his eyes and told you to tell me that he was sorry about my marinade, but you didn't tell me until eight weeks later because you were sorry too.
And that's why I kissed you, Sherlock, because I wanted you to understand that I wasn't angry, that I wasn't going to throw you out for the night or make you redo it or even make you scrape the bits of meat off the brick wall. I wanted you to stop apologizing, because you'd been doing it for the past quarter of an hour nearly constantly and though it was nice while it lasted and I regretted stopping you after I did because you rarely say you're sorry even when you are after a while it started to rub on me, abrasive, unnecessary, so I told you to cut it out and you looked at me with those big, hurt eyes, and we were so close, and so I kissed you, I put one hand on either side of your face and I bloody kissed you, and you just sat there for a second and then you floated your left hand in the air for a minute like you didn't quite know what to do with it before settling it on the back of my neck and pulling me closer, and you tilted your head to the right because you told me later that you'd seen on some study that kissing was supposed to be better if you'd tilted your head to the right and for some reason the factoid had stuck and you'd used it and oh, kissing you was soft, and lovely, and I forgot about the sauce on the stove and it bubbled over and you laughed. You laughed and then you helped me scrub dried tomatoes off the burner, mucking up your sleeves, and then you kissed me again, holding dishwatery hands up and away so as not to get them on my clothes, and it was perfect.
So that's why I kissed you, Sherlock, because of the marinade you blew up while I was at work and because you're the best person I know, and you told me yourself you don't know why someone like me would love someone like you, and I don't even know what that means because you're the best person I've ever met, but I'm writing it to you, I'm writing it to you know because you are bloody gorgeous, Sherlock, and you're brilliant and yes tilting your head to the right really does work, and I kissed you because I love you and because I know now, finally, that you love me as fiercely as I love you even though I didn't think that was quite possible, and now you're sleeping and I'm typing up this letting on your computer, and you're going to open it and read it because it's got your name on the file as well as mine, and I'll watch your face as you get down to these words, sipping the tea I've made for you, and if you'll let me I'll put my arms around you and catch you up in another kiss, because Sherlock, what I don't think you've gotten yet is that I goddamn love you so much.