I could be your perfect disaster

You could be my everafter

Since I've returned, I've had a total of two cases, both very small and very, very boring. I suppose I let everything get to my head, I mean, I thought I was a somebody. I guess I don't really miss it—I just wish I had something to keep me occupied. Slowly, thought I'm becoming used to lounging around the flat, thinking about the places I went and the people I saw. It's a boring thing, really, trying to think about things when there is nothing to stimulate your brain. John's a great help with that, keeping me occupied. We talk a lot now, but I can tell it's strained. I need for him to know, though, that things won't be the same. Being away, it changed me. I realized while I was gone, while I was "dead", that there was something here, something—more.

We fight a lot now, John and I. He constantly argues that I lied, that if I just "faced the music" then everything would be fine. It's a disaster, because it won't be fine. We will never be fine.

I sit now, at the kitchen table, talking with John about the last case we had.

"Her cat was the murderer?" John's standing by the refrigerator with a cup of tea in his hand. "Really, you can't expect it to be that easy. That is absurd!"

I scoff; he just doesn't see what is right in front of him. "No, the cat was not the murderer—it was the murder weapon. John, she was allergic. The boyfriend knew that and purposefully let the cat loose in her house."

John just sips his coffee, obviously trying not to be angry. "Why, Sherlock? Why do you do this? What makes it so important that you are right?"

"I can't—It's not important, okay?"

I watch as John roughly sets the teacup down. "Yes, it is, or else you wouldn't be defending yourself. Why are you always right?"

I huff and fling my chair back. "Because I notice things, John! I observe, and you don't, and that makes me right."

"God, you're a disaster!"

That's right, I think, I am. I will always be a disaster.

"A perfect damned disaster, you know that? That's what you are." John is laughing now, but it's an angry laugh.

It's like a fairytale now; it's as if I'm reading a story, seeing this from another perspective. "Maybe I am a disaster, John. Maybe I am that perfect disaster, because I keep body parts in the refrigerator and I solve crimes and I stay up late doing experiments but you know what?" I pause to take a deep breath. "This stupid disaster is yours."

John steps back, his hip hitting the counter. I'm fuming now, but I'm not stopping. "I've been yours for a long time now, actually. It just took a lot longer than I thought to notice." A chuckle escapes my lips. "Sometimes I thought I'd die young, and others I thought I'd live forever just by myself. Then you came along.

"When I was a child, my mother would read me fairy tales. You know, the ones like Cinderella and Snow White. Good would always triumph, and everyone would live 'happily ever after'." John's face is contorted in confusion. "I never believed that could happen. I always knew that there were going to be bad endings. Good people would die and bad people would win and sometimes you just had to deal with it. I hated the idea of happily ever after." I don't noticed I've stepped closer to John until I feel his hand on my chest. "I hated is so much—and yet here you are. My ever after."

I lean forward, cupping his cheek in my hand. I don't know what I was expecting, but when our lips touch, he doesn't push me away; in fact, he fists his fingers in my button-up and pulls me closer. I smile once we pull apart, for once noticing the wall that was once between us crumbling to the floor.

Happily, ever after we, lived

The End