"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments…"
Sherlock knows he should consider himself lucky. Being with John has changed his world and everything is new, it's never repeated or boring. "I love you, Sherlock," never fails to excite his brain and get his blood flowing. When John touches him it's a new sensation each time, John's hand on his stings like prickling fire and John's lips on his feels soft and smooth and gentle. It's never old. Always new.
I know not much of love, but with your love I could write a novel.
"…Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove."
Sherlock wakes to see John snoring next to him. It's never different, it's the same scene everyday, save the mornings Sherlock doesn't go to bed or is too tired to wake before John. Sherlock likes to wake before John to watch him sleep; he thinks maybe he can retain John the most then.
In bed is the only 'us time' for John and Sherlock. It's where they know they can't be disturbed without permission. If the phone rings or Sherlock gets a text or email, if he answers it's him giving permission, never otherwise.
It's always been the same, this morning routine. It's kind of a metaphor for their entire relationship: Sherlock liking to be one step ahead and always observing, never being observed.
He traces lines on John's arms and back. He knows this skin better than he knows his own, mostly. John has four moles on his back, the scar on his shoulder, and random scars on his legs and arms. Sherlock draws lines connecting each mole in different patterns. He feels John's skin.
John wakes to see Sherlock watching his own fingers run over John's skin. "You starin' again?" he asks, his face in a lazy smile and his voice hoarse without moisture.
"Observing," Sherlock replies.
"Mmm," John mumbles before turning onto his side and taking Sherlock in his arms.
Sherlock takes the heat of John's body like he was lost in Antarctica for weeks. He presses as close to John as he can and rests his face in the crook of John's neck.
They fall asleep again for a while before waking up and getting on with their day.
I will wake each morning to you, and it will be the only constant in my life.
"Oh no! It is an ever fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken."
Sherlock knows John has sex appeal. Sherlock knows that he himself is an attractive man, maybe, but his personality could never land him anyone new. John knows him and accepts him for what he is and how he is, nothing will ever change that.
Over the years, though, Sherlock's had his fair share of not sharing. First with all those girls John dated, he secretly tried to sabotage everything. Actually, it wasn't very non-secretive because it was very, very obvious, but of course Sherlock doesn't care.
Then they became a couple and Sherlock thought the advances from men and women would leave John. But he was wrong. They can't go out in public without John be looked at or stared at. Hell, when they go to Angelo's there's that one waiter that Sherlock doesn't even know his name because he hates him that much because of how much the boy stares at John.
Sherlock has nothing to worry about, though. After all this time and all this work to get Sherlock to be with him, there's no way he'd ever screw that up, no matter who came knocking on his door. Above that, John's an honest man; he's a caring man. Though even he thinks Sherlock is a heartless nonhuman at times, he knows the most that it'd kill Sherlock.
I will never leave you for another, no suitor suits me better.
"It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken."
When Sherlock looks at John, he never seizes to be…amazed. Likewise, John never seizes to say, "Brilliant," or "Fantastic," when Sherlock makes a deduction.
Sherlock believes that only John can appreciate him for who is he. Sherlock believes that it is only John that sees him, John that hears him, and like all other senses: only John that feels him, John that tastes him, John that smells him. It is only John, John, only ever John because John truly belongs with him. John is his soulmate, his partner in many aspects, his life, his love.
You are the most amazing, unique creature, and I will always treasure and recognize that.
"Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come."
Sherlock often daydreams when he's bored. His usual go-to thought process is to wonder where he and John will be in five years. He'll be thirty-something and John just over forty-something, but of course in his mind they won't age a day because he hopes they'll still be working for Lestrade and Mycroft on occasion.
Sherlock sometimes wonders how much time he has left with John. He wonders if John will ever leave him, or more highly unlikely: he'll leave John. He imagines it'd be an equal leaving in that they'll die together. Sherlock's not a teenage girl so he doesn't like to think, 'Like Romeo and Juliet,' but he does think they'll die side by side.
Some days Sherlock wants to stay in bed all day and keep John trapped with him. Maybe he'll let John leave to make them breakfast but more time than not he'll make John stay no matter what. He wants to soak all the time he has with John up even though he knows, thinks, hope, prays that John won't leave any time soon. But the thoughts never stop from invading his thoughts.
You and I will control the time we have together; nothing else can.
"Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom."
Sometimes Sherlock knows how mundane relationships can be. Nothing ever changes, it's always seeing the same person every day, waking up next to the same person, going on dates with the same person. But honestly, Sherlock can't think of a person he'd rather have the mundane with. John is so very ordinary, but he's the most unordinary of the ordinary. John gives him new and not boring even when the relationship is tedious and boring.
In this way John will never fail him. John will never fail him in being spontaneous and a boredom remover. Sometimes John will pronounce grand ideas like, "Let's take a trip. Anywhere you like. I memorized Mycroft's credit card numbers," or he'll present Sherlock with a case he hides away for emergencies. Sherlock loves this and John loves the looks Sherlock gets. It's enough to fuel the warmth in his body through winter.
So Sherlock likes to hope John stays the same and never changes, even if he is the only person Sherlock ever wakes up next to ever again.
I will love you forever the same exact way every day from now until forever.
"If this be an error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved."
Sherlock knows he is lucky to have found John. Everything about John is new and exciting always, and it will never change. Their love is eternal and never altering and never painful; it is a rare supernova that comes only once every thousands of years. Sherlock will never take for granted what he has; he will cherish it forever.
If I do not do as I vow, then let me be a fool that has never loved.
*Just a quick thing written to the lines of Let Me Not To The Marriage of True Minds (Sonnet CXVI) by William Shakespeare. We read it in class today and I was inspired.
*As I wrote and as you should imagine, the first italics is the poem, the paragraphs are Sherlock thinking, and the second italics is John's vow to Sherlock in their wedding or something, and it's kind of what the poem line means. If that makes sense…
*Please forgive me if you don't like it. I write love letters about John and Sherlock because the one I love will never love me back.