Because I will never stop listening to Delicate by Damien Rice, ever.

Choose your own pairing, it could honestly be anything you wanted, although i guess there is Molly/Lestrade and some awkward Donovan/Dimmock type thing. But read into it whatever you like.

Oh, and also RDJude. Always. I'm sure some of you ship it, but if not just skip it! (I made a rhyme) Dedicated to my Jaskia – If anyone here watches OUAT check her out she writes some amazing stuff. Her pen name is Laugher . Lover. Fighter

So why'd you fill my sorrows

with the words you'd borrowed

from the only place

you've ever known

I

John
He is a doctor and therefore knows the complex strength of a human body, the durability and the power of brain and muscle and heart, and yet it seems to him sometimes that all these things are so delicate, like he is made of glass inside and one day he might break.

Molly
Her heart is not her own, it beats for him. He does not hear. Perhaps he does not listen, or perhaps he does not care, but he who sees everything does not see that what she gives him is delicate. She can see, and she wishes to be like him, with a heart of iron and steel and ice and then perhaps she would be strong.

James
He searches for a world that burns as he watches from a throne, in a crown. He will burn down lives and kingdoms and hearts and minds and dreams, all these delicate things that he pretends not to possess himself.

Mycroft
Ice is curious in that it can be infinitely strong or infinitely fragile, thin as paper or miles thick. It can be beautiful or terrible, it can tear and sting and maim and kill but it can also break. There is a breaking point, you know, for everything, even ice that is frozen miles thick. Which makes his own heart, of thin ice, all the more delicate.

Greg
He has been broken oh-so-many times and each of these times he will stand and put his pieces back together. There are cracks that only he can see. After so many times he will be careless and his hands will shake as he rebuilds his heart and the cracks will show, but still no one will notice. He wallpapers over his pain so carefully you might think he did not want others to see but you would know differently. He wishes for the day they will see he is delicate too.

Sebastian
Tigers are nothing but muscle and power, and it seems laughable therefore that they could be anything remotely resembling delicate, but Sebastian knows better than anyone that in the sight of a good hunter, a tiger is no more strong than a spiderweb in rain, and of hunters James Moriarty is the best, though Sebastian has never seen him bag a single animal.

Donovan
And she pretends to be strong, like they all do, and she pretends that it does not bother her that he is a bully or that she bullies him right back so that he will not see she is delicate, and there is nothing in the world she hates more than bullies.

Sherlock
He looks so breakable, a porcelain doll of a man, with cream-white skin and eyes like crystal under long dark lashes. He is thin, tiny, not in height, but in build, and you feel as though you could break his wrists under your fingers, snap an arm like a twig, this is how slight he is. So it is a surprise when he proves himself strong and infallible under the porcelain skin, muscle and mind and nerve built for speed and for strength, and more surprising still that underneath this he is even more delicate than his outward appearance would suggest. The porcelain of his soul is cracked and marred. His world has done this, cracked him, broken him, like he is the toy of a careless child, and one day maybe it will be too much and he will shatter for good under the weight of a world that breaks beautiful things only and does not love.

And why'd you sing hallelujah?

If it means nothing to ya?

Why'd you sing with me

at all?

II

John&Lestrade
Neither will see that the other is breakable. Army fatigues will hide the delicacy of their hearts and their minds. They are both soldiers, you see. Just fighting different wars, is all.

Lestrade&Molly
They are both so very broken, and one day they will see this and he will fix her and she him but for now to be delicate together is enough.

Molly&Sherlock
She can see that he is delicate, and it is frightening. If Sherlock is not strong, no one is.

Sherlock&Mycroft
Every time Mycroft sees him he looks more and more delicate and he fights to put off the day someone will break him.

Mycroft&Jim
He seemed perfect, ice meters thick, and he wanted him and craved him and dreamed of him and the games they would play together and the worlds they would rule, and at the very least the flames with which he would burn him. These are the things he dreamed of but they were no more than dreams because he found then that even Mycroft Holmes was delicate. He left, then, to rule the world with the reason that the ice of the elder brother's heart was so thin.

Jim&Molly
She is so delicate, like she is made of spun glass and he is entranced and obsessed by the frailty of her body. She is from a fairy tale, a damsel in distress, a little girl in a red hood in the forest at night and he is he wolf who seeks her. One day he will break her wrist, and he will delight in it, fragile things snapping beneath his hands, and she will see the flash of the man who is James above the man who is Jim and she will be scared and end it. That is alright with him. He had been tired of playing the grandmother.

Molly&Dimmock
She is beautiful and sweet and kind. She is perfect for Lestrade and this is what worries him. "Be careful with him, okay?" he tells her. "He's not like other guys. He's delicate." She will repeat the word in confusion, asking for him to clarify. He shrugs his shoulders and is embarrassed. "Delicate. He breaks easy. Just - be gentle."

Dimmock&Lestrade
He looks frail somehow, young and slight with brown hair that goes blonde in the sun. Lestrade is struck with a sudden need to protect him. Dimmock does not want his protection. This is the beginning of friendship. It is curious that Lestrade who is older and stronger is also infinitely more delicate.

Lestrade&Mycroft
His brother is too delicate for the touch of clumsy hands. Lestrade will be followed and monitored and kidnapped. He will not, however, be afraid of Mycroft, and this will be new and surprising. There is little of which Lestrade is afraid of, save for the things in Sherlock that are delicate, and this mutual fear is what drives them.

Mycroft&John
There is admiration, and there is apprehension, respect, and discourtesy. There is a debt owed both ways, and a wariness of one the other. It is a delicate relationship, but it is maintained because there is one common factor between two very different men and that is love for Sherlock. This love is unconditional. It is a complicated love, but it is the only thing you will find in a world of delicate things that is unyieldingly strong.

John&Dimmock
It is not hate so much as tension, not disrespect so much as a lack of understanding, but neither will really care for the other and the relationship is delicate. They will never know how similar they are.

Dimmock&Donovan
He hands her a flower because underneath the arrogance is a gentleman, and she knows it is not a flower given of love but a flower that is given in friendship and they walk together for a bit over lunch break and talk, right on the line but not over it, and this line is so delicate. Dimmock is married and she has had enough of being a homewrecker.

Donovan&Sherlock
He tries to break her, and she him, and neither knows how breakable, how delicate, the other really is.

Sherlock&Lestrade
Delicate things need protection. Maybe it is not too late.

Sherlock&Jim
He is so infinitely delicate, a virgin in every way. It is not just the sex. He is pure somehow. Untouched. Like a toy that has never been played with. Jim will play with him. Jim will maybe break him. He has never been able not to break his toys, nor has he ever been able to resist the allure of a shiny new one.

Sherlock&John
He is a work of art, a man of crystal, so infinitely beautiful that it would stand to reason that anything so perfect must possess a certain fragility. He is not surprised that Sherlock is so very delicate, but that does not mean it doesn't worry him.

We might kiss
When we are alone
When nobody's watching
We might take it home

III

Robert&Jude
It is one of the nights where they are lying in a hotel bed together, but they have not had sex, they have never had sex because it is not about sex and never will be. They are close enough together that he can hear Robert's heartbeat through his own skin. Soon there will be five hours between them. There will be the occasional phone call from an ocean apart in which Robert's heart will beat in mid-afternoon, and Jude's in the same moment at dusk. But right now there is one night, this night, and maybe that is enough for now.

Robert is asleep against his chest. He traces the line of his cheekbone with a forefinger. Robert is perfect in sleep. In the morning he will be loud and reckless and flirty. He will joke and laugh and smile and be carelessly handsome and he will pretend he is not breakable inside. He is beautiful in all these things, but to see him quiet is rare and it is fragile. Jude does not dare breathe, for fear of waking him.

"I love you." he will say into his hair. His hair curls when it is long. It is Sherlock's hair. Maybe that makes it easier. He can love Holmes. He can never love Robert.

Robert is asleep and does not hear. These are words that are too delicate to say when he is awake.

Its not that we're scared; it's just that it's delicate