You were standing in the kitchen washing the dishes in the sink, your sleeves pushed up to your elbows, when he walked in the door. You had been in the flat alone all day, so you hadn't thought about the need to move your sleeves back down when he strode in.
Sherlock leaned against the door to the kitchen when he walked in, just admiring you, when he noticed something that he had tried to put out of his mind for months now. He walked over to you, grabbing a towel on his way.
His hand reached over the sink to turn the water off, then gently pulled your hands out of the water and dried them with the towel. He kept his head down, his attention only on drying you off, so he didn't see the look of confusion on your face.
You looked down at where his eyes were held and realized what he had seen. He laid the towel on the counter and released a deep breath. Sherlock held your hands in his as he raised his head to look into your eyes.
There were tears glossing over his eyes as he held your arm in his hand. "I tried to come up with any other answer for my deductions," he said, "anything that wouldn't mean I had failed to notice the most important person in my life destroying herself."
Your mouth fell open at his words, tears pooling in your eyes as you let what he said sink in. He cared about you enough that he had doubted his deductions; his deductions that always spilled from his mouth without a filter, because he always knew they were correct. He doubted himself because for once he couldn't bear the thought of being right.
You laid your head against his chest, his arms wrapping tight around you. Sherlock walked you to the couch and sat down with you curled into his side and his arm around your shoulders. Tears fell down your cheeks and onto his shirt as you laid with him, and you could feel a sudden tear fall from his eye and land in your hair.
Later that night, after laying curled in his arms for hours, tears streaming down both of your faces, and sweet nothings being whispered in your ear, Sherlock lifted you into his arms and carried you to his room.
Sherlock laid you gently atop the comforter, his eyes still glistened with unshed tears but his mouth turned up in a light smile at the sight of you laid out on his bed. You were both in your comfortable clothes so he pulled the comforter down and lifted your legs to slide underneath it, then he slid in next to you.
He turned so that you were face to face, his breath tickling the top of your head. He reached down and gently grasped your wrist, unable to see the scars that lined it in his dim bedroom, he still placed a light kiss to the places he knew they were.
Your light gasp was his only inclination that this was okay; that what he was doing was as good a thing for you as it was for him. He knew he couldn't kiss away the feelings that had put the marks there, but he felt the need to cover the marks of your pain with marks of love.
Your tears resumed trailing down your face as Sherlock gently placed his lips along your skin. You had only imagined the idea of someone's gentle caresses on your scars, and you would never have imagined Sherlock to be the one with his lips on your skin.
When his lips left your wrist, you tilted your head to look into his eyes, try to figure out what he was thinking, but his eyes were looking at your lips as he slightly wetted his own. His free hand came to rest along the side of your face and the back of your neck, gently tilted your head toward him.
His lips fit softly against yours, not fighting for dominance, just the light pressure of your lips pressing together. When Sherlock let your lips go he tugged you close to him and wrapped his arms around you, content to never let you go.