Once upon a time, there lived a man called Sherlock and a man called John. They met each other (quite by an accident that had to happen, even if it had hurt both of them in the years before) and moved in together.
Started solving crimes together.
Everyone kept pointing at them, telling they must be dating, that they obviously were in love. And how right they were! They still kept saying "No, that's not quite true" (well, John did, mostly), because they couldn't see it. They only saw the other as their friend, even if they felt the love inside them.
Once, at a crime scene (they had been after the murderer for a week and Sherlock had been annoyed and so deliriously happy at the same time, telling how good the murderer was.
The chase, when they finally found the murderer, had taken them a few hours, and John had been at a gunpoint and Sherlock had been shouting [distracting] until Greg and his team came in) Sherlock was all over John, telling him he couldn't die.
"What would I do without you?" he said, "How would I survive without you?"
And John stared at him. "You don't need me," he said.
Neither of the men realised that everyone was looking at them, waiting for them to finally get over themselves and would they please snog already? (There was a pool going on how long it would take them to realise what others had seen since the beginning. People had to keep making new bets because the two just didn't work like they should've.)
"I do need you!" Sherlock insisted and closed his eyes, wondering how he could say what he wanted to say without scaring John (his dear John, hisonly friend) away. "You're air," was all he said, all he thought he could say.
John blinked. He blinked again. "What?"
"You're the air I breathe, the only thing that keeps me going and together when there's nothing, when I fall into silence," Sherlock said and turned away. "And now you're just going to leave me because I shouldn't have said that, it will make you go away, it always makes people go away, leave me, when I tell them the truth-"
"Shut up." John's voice was fond but firm and Sherlock turned to look at him, eyes wide. John rubbed his head and looked around. "Look, we need to talk, obviously. But I think this place has too many people who don't need to hear it. So. We should go back to Baker Street, yeah?"
Sherlock looked around him, blinking when he realised they were still with the police (how had he forgotten? Well it was about John, of course he had) and nodded, waving to Lestrade to inform him they were going (the man responded with a nod and a smile and Sherlock wondered).
The skull whispers into the air Finally when they come in and John makes tea for them. The air is brighter than usually, more hopeful, because, let's face it, everything feels their love and if it's finally going to happen, everything will be happy with them, for them (and the skull, the skull will keep the place going when they forget, drowning into each other).
Sherlock sits down on the couch and blinks at how bright everything seems and how John has changed into something even more gorgeous than he usually is (and isn't that weird since John is always the most gorgeous thing on his mind?) and he wonders what they will talk, why they will talk. He accepts the tea when John gives him the cup and drinks it, puts the cup down, and turns to stare John (who has sat next to Sherlock so that when they start talking, he'll be able to keep the man in place even if he wants to run away – when he wants to run away).
"So," John says.
"So," Sherlock repeats and lets his mind wander.
"Air."
Suddenly something is twisting Sherlock's insides and he looks at John with panic-filled eyes, is this the moment when you tell me you'll leave? his eyes ask but he says nothing, waiting for John to realise and answer him.
"No, see, this is what is wrong with us," John says and wonders where the words are coming from, because he hears his thoughts multiplied outside of his head and he wonders where to start. "We assume things too much, when we could just ask and find out. You do it, because you're so damn marvellous and you believe in your deductions always, even when you don't have all the facts. I do it, because it's easier than to face disappointment my mind always waits to hear if I voice my thoughts."
Sherlock looks bewildered and his eyes run over John, trying to see what the man is thinking but failing. "What do you mean?" he asks and he realises how right John is, because he hates having to ask about something someone's thinking (John's thinking, especially John, because they have lived together for two years and he still can't read John always, and he doesn't understand it).
Drawing a deep breath, John opens his mouth and the words flow out like he had prepared a speech (and in his mind he wonders if he has, not realising it himself before this): "You're brilliant, you really are, and I can't understand what I've done to deserve you; I don't believe I deserve you at all. I always fear I'll disappoint you, bore you to death, but then, then you say something like you did at the crime scene, and I have to wonder if I fear for nothing, if really I should just feel and believe and let the feelings surround me."
Sherlock's mouth is hanging open, Oh, and he stares at John's lips moving, listening to every word he has to say (memorising, just to play it over and over again later, like he does with almost everything John says).
"And you need to know that I feel like you're my air and when we're apart, I can't breathe, and I was already like this when you went and jumped off the roof and pretended to be dead for those long months. I didn't really live at all that time, because you weren't here and I was and I'm nothing, nothing without you any longer. And I don't know if I was anything before you, either. And then I'm with you and there's finally air but at the same moment I drown, drown in you, suffocate from all that is you, because I know (knew? Thought I knew?) that you'll never feel the same for me," John continues and he's breathing faster, waiting for Sherlock to hit him hard with words that'll tell him he was wrong, that the air hadn't changed for them like it felt it had.
For a long moment they stare at each other. Nothing moves around them, even the air stops, like it's holding its breath to let it go when the tension goes away (in an angry huff if Sherlock insists it's nothing, in a long peaceful sigh if he finally, if they finally get over themselves).
"I always thought that didn't happen in real life," Sherlock begins and looks down. He wishes he could face John but he can't, because he would see all the feelings there and he would just stop talking because is there anything more beautiful? and he needs to tell John what he thinks. "When I was trying to understand romance, I read about it, all the times when someone lost their breath, or couldn't think when looking at their loved ones and I never felt anything like that, don't think anyone I knew felt like that. And I thought it had to be a lie, that there couldn't be anything like that, because I was solving so many passion crimes and murders that were committed by a husband who was completely smitten and so on. But then I met you and air was taken away from my lungs and I could only stare at you, wondering if I'd been waiting for you for whole my life. I probably had. And you were perfect but you were straight, so I only watched you from afar, wishing you would notice me."
John had moved his hand and it was hovering over Sherlock's waiting for permission to touch and Sherlock, after noticing the hand, moves his own and now they just sit, holding hands, looking into each other's eyes.
"I think I was wrong," Sherlock says.
"I think the air is swirling," John comments.
"I think I love you," they say, when the air comes flooding towards them and ushers them to move, to kiss, to touch, to be more.
Everything is dancing, waltzing through them, across them, all over them. Sparkling when their lips touch and they get lost in each other.
"I think I'm drowning," Sherlock says when they part and laughs. John joins him in his laughter and kisses his hand. "I think I'm enjoying this feeling. Don't you ever leave me."
"I won't. I will love you now and forever and ever, even after death. I promise," John says and Sherlock pulls him close, so they're touching each other everywhere they can, so that they're whispering nonsense into each other's ears (knowing it all to be true rather than nonsense).
Once upon a time, there was a man called Sherlock and a man called John. They were in love and they got each other for the rest of their lives (lives that probably weren't as long as they would've been had they not been running after bad men all the time).
They were the love story you hear everywhere.