Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses. - Ann Landers
Beautiful. So very beautiful. I can hardly believe how long it took me to realize just how beautiful he is. Every part of him is gorgeous. Those quicksilver eyes, those plush lips, the pale, unmarked skin, the long lashes, the curly mop of dark hair, the smile, oh, the smile! And the mind. The mind within is just as amazing as the intense, all knowing gaze it hides behind. The deductions, irritating as they are, are brilliant. The charmingly thoughtless comments he makes, meant to help but ending with a sting. But you know what they say: "The road to Hell is lined with good intensions." Some people believe that he is on that road. I know better than that, though. I see how pure he is inside. He is so innocent and yet even he doesn't see it. He sees what the world has told him he is. He sees something less than human, but I see a child, small and scared of the big world around him. I see him reach out for the love that he so desperately craves and I see him denied it time and time again. I could never say no to him when he asked for such a simple yet important emotion. I could never have said no to such a bright eyed, terrified boy. He was so scared that I would turn him down like the others before me. He was so worried that he would be alone again. I was so lost to him that I couldn't understand what he was scared of. I couldn't quite believe that he thought I was capable of leaving him. But I could never turn down that gaze. Those eyes. Oh, how he spills his emotions out to me. They are for me and me alone and before, I never let myself hope that someone like him could love someone like me. I didn't dare hope for anything more than what we had, because I loved what we had and it would have killed me to lose it. I would rather have stayed like that, in the back of his mind, the side lines of his life, than risk stepping in front of him, in the hopes of being seen, but instead, getting in his way. I would rather have stayed close by, but in the background, than have taken what wasn't mine and pushed my way in to his line of sight. I never thought that he would want me there. I didn't trust myself not to ruin everything, just to have him look at me.
But oh, how he looks at me! I never thought that such a gaze would be sent my way. Especially by a man. Especially by him. But here we are, gazing lovingly into one another's eyes, holding hands across the small gap between chairs. He smiles at me perfectly and I know that as long as I have this man in my arms, I will always be happy. His eyes tell me that he feels the same way. I smile back at him and I can tell that my gaze is as devoted as his. I can feel a deep pressure in my chest, like my heart has swollen with the amount of love it has to handle. I can barely cope with it, it is so intense. I feel like my heart may just explode, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if Sherlock's went with it. There seems to be a line, an invisible string, connecting us. I know it is unbelievably cheesy, but I can't help it. I am smitten, no denying, no regretting. Besides, the things that people consider 'cheesy' are only under that category because they have been repeated so many times. And, of coarse, they have only been repeated because they are true.
His eyes are shining brilliantly at me and his whole face has lit up with the love he is feeling. Mine must be the same. His love light is burning a hole straight through my heart and I can hardly bare it. It is too good, too wonderful. I don't even know if I deserve this amount of affection. But on it goes, the gazing and the giving. We cannot stop. The more he shows his love, the more I must show mine. I can't help it. It is a never ending circle of love and it is perfect. He reaches out for me and I can't help but take his hand. Take his hand and run. We are running in our minds. So fast that our hair is being pushed back from our faces by the wind. We aren't running from anything, or anyone, we are simply running. The wind whips past us and our hands hold on tightly to one another. We grin at each other and his eyes are sparkling. It is exhilarating. So much more so than actual running. We are just sitting before one another in our flat, holding hands across our laps, gazing into each other's eyes, hearts swollen and thumping in our ears, almost painfully good, and yet we are running faster than time, closer than atoms, more dependant on one another than fire and oxygen, yet safely apart like pillars. We stand close by each other, working together to hold up the building, our lives, but then again, we stand apart. Just as we are in reality. Holding hands. Attached, yet unattached. Together, but not one in the same. Different in all the right ways, identical where necessary, unbearably far apart, and pressed together so close that we are breathing one another in. Everything is so intense. It feels wonderful and yet it terrifies me. I love it and I hate it and I fear it and I am addicted to it and there is nothing I can do about it. I have never felt so complete and yet I know that I don't need him. I don't need anyone, but I can't begin to imagine life without him. I can't even bring myself to try.
Sherlock stands and I move after him. We go to the bedroom and we curl up, into one another. He leans forward and he kisses me. I never want it to end. He kisses over my face and I realize that I am crying. It's all so intense, I can't help it. But he is crying, too, and I kiss his tears away in return. We smile and we kiss and we cuddle and I have never felt so alive as I do now, in my love's arms, knowing that he is mine and I am his and he knows it as well as I do. I do. I do. I do. I could say it forever. Do I love him and cherish him? I do. Do I want to hold him forever, to death's door and ever after? I do. Do I want to stay with him forever, no matter what? I do. Do I trust him and believe that he feels the same way? I do. Do I promise to give myself, my heart, body and soul to him, and to receive him, his heart, body and soul, in return? Do I promise to never take advantage of him and to never purposefully hurt him in any way? I do, I do, I do, I do, I do. I Have and I do and I will. Forever and for always. I am his and he is mine and it will stay that way. Because I love him and he loves me. I do and he does. We do and we always will. Because we love.
THE END