~~for the beautiful queen_mycroft's competition (ps angst alertttttt)~~

        "I love you."

        "That's illegal."

        "No, it's not."

        "Yes. It is."

        "I love you."

        "You can't."

        "I don't care if it's illegal or not, you prick. I love you. I love every damn thing about you."

        "Stop."

        "You're beautiful. Like all the constellations in a country sky. Hell, you're more beautiful than that."

        "Please stop."

        "I'm addicted to you."

        "You don't know what it's like to be addicted."

        "I'm intoxicated by you."

        "No."

        "I just can't get enough of you."

        "Will you stop?"

        "Never."

        Soft fingers meet with a soft cheekbone. It's just a whisper of skin, all hidden and gentle and quiet and secretive. It reminds John of his young artist self when he used to stare at his collection of colored pencils, trying to choose the perfect hue. Eventually, one would plead to be used, so he would take it up in his nimble, yet calloused fingers, and start to color. Well, color would be the wrong word. John would start to shade. From dark to light. From pressing to gentle. From hard to soft. That's what this touch reminded John of--shading in a masterpiece.

        That's what this man was, wasn't he? A pure masterpiece composed like a piece of Mozart's music. There he was, all cresendos and decresendos of porcelain skin; his voice either mezzo or piano, never forte; his movements only ever like legato--slow, steady, smooth. Sherlock Holmes was a masterpiece.

        "I love you."

        "Why?"

        "There are millions of reasons."

        "Surely you can pick just one."

        Only silence fills the room. "It's difficult...but I have one."

        "Yes?"

        "Beauty."

        "If my looks are the most important attribute about me--"

        "Beauty in every, single way. You are made of beauty. You radiate beauty. You just...are beauty."

        There is silence once more before a small spark of laughter. Choked laughter. "No. Look at me."

        John looked. He didn't know what Sherlock saw because John was blinded by beauty.

        "A heart won't quit."

        "What?"

        "A heart will never quit loving someone."

        "I doubt that."

        "I believe it."

        Tick, tick, tick, the clock sings as seconds of daunting silence roll by.

        "Good-bye."

        "Don't do this again."

        "Please leave now."

        "I love you."

        "I know. Now please leave."

        John doesn't need to be told again. He exits the all-too-white room to walk down the all-too-white corridor into the all-too-white lift down to the assorted colors of the great outdoors.

        John knows, deep down, he will never hear Sherlock say the intimidating three words back to him. He knows this. It has made a home in his all-too-loving heart, burrowing into his arteries. But something else had made a mansion there before this house was even established, and that was John's love. That love had filled every piece of marrow and white cell and red cell and bacteria that his body held.

        This love was his whole being.

        They met when it was raining. It wasn't the kind that soaked you to the very skin, leaving your teeth chattering, and your clothes frigidly wet. This rain was the kind love flourished in. This rain was the tiny drops that left hope stained on your shirt.

        Umbrellas filled the cobblestone streets, hiding their owners under them from this hope. Only a few pedestrians were without an umbrella, and John Watson was one of them. He kept by the awnings, hurrying to each one like the game children played of evade-the-black-tiles. John, with head bowed down, proceeded down Baker Street until he got to a stoplight.

        There was a man there, waiting, watching. John didn't pay any mind to him. Until he stepped out in the middle of passing cars. John saw it before it was too late, and then he saw eyes ripped from the galaxy itself.

        "Jesus Chris. Are you blind?" John growled, shifting away from the man.

        "Perhaps I did it on purpose."

        "Oh. Suicidal. Terrific."

        The man hummed, "Oh. Sarcastic. Brilliant."

        John looked up, meeting his eyes again. They were the kind of pupils you could drown in if you looked into them for too long.

        "Be careful next time."

        "Careful is not in my vocabulary."

        "Well, add it. And paste my face next to it."

        "I'd care not to."

        John rolled his eyes in frustration. "Who even are you?"

        "Sherlock Holmes," the man answered. "Consulting detective."

        "I don't know what the hell that is--"

        "I made it up."

        "Oh, of course you did."

        "I suppose you have a carrer in sarcasm since you seem to be a pro at it."

        "I'd take that as a compliment, but you don't seem like the kind of guy who would just give those out voluntarily."

        "Eh." Sherlock popped the collar of his coat up, tilting his head towards the charcoal sky like he might just open his mouth and catch a raindrop on his tongue.

        "Shit. I'm late for a date."

        "You are," Sherlock assures.

        "See you around," John swiveled on his heel, starting down the street, not ever wanting to see Sherlock Holmes again, but ice cold fingers wrapped around his wrist.

        "Dinner?"       

        "What the hell?"

        Sherlock sighed, "I asked if you'd like dinner."       

        "Yes, I'm meeting a girl at Speedy's."

        "If you were from around here, you would know Speedy's closes at three in the afternoon. Your date obviously knew you wouldn't realize the cafe time. She avoided you."

        "How'd you--"

        "I observed. Now dinner."

        "You're--"

        "A high-functioning sociopath."

        "A stranger," John concluded.

        "I'm not a murderer. I suppose that's all that counts." Sherlock quirked a perfectly shaped eyebrow.

        "Are you paying?" John crossed his arms.

        "Of course. If the next one is on you."

        On the day love flourished, John Watson and Sherlock Holmes met in the rain.

        It was raining the next day John visited. It pattered heavily against the windows, beating out an uneven tune. He had strolled into the all-too-white room and taken a seat in the grotesque checkered chair. Sherlock's eyelids were slid shut, and his pale pink lips were parted slightly.

        John always loved to watch him sleep. With all the worry strewn away from his face and his eyebrows not furrowed in the intense concentration, he was even more beautiful than normal.

        Normal. John scoffs. Sherlock Holmes would never be normal. He would never be ordinary. He would never be a hero. He would never be a great man.  He would never be an angel.

        But one thing was for sure...he would always be John's.

         They kissed in the firelight. Orange color flickered across their closed eyelids, painting pictures of love and adoration on their cheeks. It had been raining earlier, and their clothes were still soaked. Maybe they liked the wet. Maybe they liked the coldness. Maybe the kiss changed everything. Maybe John tumbled head-first into the deep pool of love that night. Maybe Sherlock actually felt his heart flutter with emotion. Maybe. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

        The world would never know.

        It was a Tuesday, and Sherlock was having one of his bad days. Today he couldn't remember his nurse's name. Today he couldn't even remember why he was laying in this all-too-white bed. Today he couldn't remember who he loved.

        John arrived at seven pm. The receptionist tried to stop him from stepping foot into Sherlock's room, but being the fierce soldier he was, John forced his way through.

        "Who are you?" Sherlock tilts his head up like the first day they had met. It still looked like he would just stick out his tongue and catch a raindrop. He stares, though. Blank-faced, eyes dark.

        "I'm John Watson."

        Sherlock cocks his head to the left side, quirking a perfectly shaped eyebrow up. "That's a funny name."

        "Have you heard yours lately?" John laughs.

        "What is my name?"

        The oxygen in John's esophagus caught, freezing at his vocal cords. The doctors told him this would happen eventually. Sherlock's brain would fail at one point, and he would forget almost everything important in his life. Mind palace? Gone. Memories? Gone. John? Gone.

        "You're Sherlock Holmes, remember?"

        "Remember, remember, remember," Sherlock sings, giggling. "I don't remember anything."

        John left.

        "I love you, Sherlock Holmes." That was the first time John said those words. He said them into those ebony curls he absoutely adored to thread his fingers through, tugging gently, elicting a small groan of euphoria from Sherlock.

        Sherlock laughed dryly, like his throat had gone raw. "No one could ever love me."

        "But I do. I defied all the odds," John laughed, too.

        "I think I'll try defying gravity," Sherlock had sang in a beautiful tone. He and John had taken a trip to the theatre earlier that week and seen Wicked, a musical about an exiled witch and her blonde best friend. In a twisted way, it was Sherlock and John. John and Sherlock. The detective and the blogger. The most simple math equation there ever was.

        "You're gonna be popular," John sang back, allowing a girlish giggle to escape past his lips.

        "I already am popular, dummy." Sherlock playfully punched John on the bicep. John just kissed him like their lives depended on it.

        And maybe it did.

        John visited him one last time. He didn't go into the room. He didn't say good-bye. He watched from the all-too-white window, peering at the all-too-white man made of porcelain. He had kissed that skin countless times, marking his neck, his collarbones, his shoulders, his chest, his hips, his thighs. Everywhere, anywhere to tell everyone, anyone that Sherlock was John's.

        So John watched through the glass as his lover fought off a needle a nurse was about to plunge into his arm to take the last tube of crimson liquid. John watched the reufescent color fill the clear container, and then he turned away. He wanted to stay longer. He needed to stay longer.

        "I need you, Sherlock. Jesus Christ, I need you so bad."

        "John," came the whisper of want.

          John didn't stay. He left to all-too-white hospital and found his sorrows in amber liquid.

        "I love you."

        "I know, John."

        "Do you?"

        "You tell me every day."

        "I do."

        "Save that for our betrothal."

        "You make everything sound so damn fancy."

        "I know," Sherlock giggled. John loved it when he giggled. It made him think of Sherlock when he was just a boy, and how innocent he probably was. Beautiful, innocent Sherlock.

        John had kissed him again. John had kissed him so hard, Sherlock had fallen over. They collided with the ground, laughing and kissing any piece of skin their lips could find. They tattooed each other with love. They rumpled their sheets, not caring what Mrs. Hudson would think when she washed them. And later, with legs still intertwined, they shared another kiss.

        John got the call at nine in the afternoon.

        "Is this John Watson?"

        "Yes."

        "I'm sorry to inform you that Sherlock Holmes has passed away."

        John had ended the call.

        "It's nine in the afternoon. And your eyes are the size of the moon." That was Sherlock's favorite song. When he had put the golden ring on John's finger, they had danced to it. John remembered the feeling of Sherlock's hand on his lower back, tracing circles in the small dimples there at the bottom of his spine.

        "I love you, too."