Wake up.

Wake up.

Wake. Up.

Are you awake yet?

"Wake."

"Up."

John resurfaces with a gasp, because Sherlock is kissing all the air from his lungs and he spent his last breaths protesting.

"So," Sherlock murmurs, his smile pressed against John's cheeks. He can feel it after Sherlock pulls away. "Wake up," he says, clapping his hands.

John looks at the clock, still half-asleep. Through his muddy vision, the time "4:30" blinks persistently at him, and he turns to Sherlock for a few unhappy moments before burying his head underneath the covers somewhat defiantly.

"Go back to sleeeep," he moans, grabbing Sherlock by the hem of his pants and pulling him down.

"But - John."

"Rrrmpph," he mumbles back in annoyance, bending his head under the pillow to cancel out the noise.

"John, I want to show you something," Sherlock explains enthusiastically, "please."

"But it's four thirrttyy."

"Actually, 4:33."

"Where do you want to take me," John mumbles, even though he's not looking at Sherlock anymore. If he did, he'd see the look and Sherlock's eyes and he'd lose his resolve.

"Um," Sherlock pauses. Then, he snaps, "Get up."

"No," John yawns as he pushes himself up. Sherlock can see the muscles in his arms contract accordingly, and he holds the space below his armpit so he can feel it ripple against his palm; God, John is magnificent. "I don't wanna, Sherlock."

He snaps, a bit impatiently, "Put on your coat, John, there's a bit of a chill." Sherlock jumps to attention out of their bed, and John can see that he is dressed, head-to-toe, in winter attire.

John sighs languidly out of his nose.

"Haven't you anything else to do?" he grumbles as he rolls out of bed. Then he motions to his dresser. "Pass me things."

"What things?"

"Clothes things. As one would associate with, you know, a dresser."

***

It's brighter than he remembered. The stars contrast so loudly across the night sky, and the moon is cool and angular against their skin. He takes a sigh inward, taking out his lighter and clicking it a few times to ignite a small flame.

So cold, out here.

It's a cold that Sherlock wants to bathe in, a cold that is fresh and clean and lovely, that makes Sherlock want to throw snowballs and kick ice across snow-covered avenues. He wants a cigarette in his hands that he can smoke at, he wants a warmth beside him that lends tiny kisses.

There's a leftover of a campfire, which John tuts quietly at as he steps over and through piles of snowdrifts, and Sherlock shakes his head as he limps through the snow; trips and stumbles over the broken shards of glass that surround Sherlock's alcove.

The carnival isn't on, yet; no one is there, and the wind whistles softly into their ears as they tread down to the secret place that Sherlock holds close to his body. The lights are absent, and they can see an empty, eerily creaky merry-go-round wheeze rustily as it spins in circles from so far away. Foam froths as the sea calmly hits the shore, making a low "shhhh" sound that quiets the pounding of Sherlock's heart.

He motions to John to sit down under the tree, right besides where the snow and dirt meet. John's lips twitch upward in a slight smile, and Sherlock meets his gaze with a shudder that isn't associated with the cold.

His eyes are so steely; like oceans. Oceans that whirlpool in storms when the snow hits the windows, a quiet applause for when they kiss into the shallows of their hearts. There is a permanent stain of blue across Sherlock's chest from where John touched his soul, a scar across his abdomen from where John cut him open and filled him with butterflies.

The scar is probably still bleeding. He's okay with that.

***

Sherlock is angled, and quiet, and calm, every inch of his body proclaiming exultantly, "I am alive." It's so hard not to notice his chest rise and fall, to hear his heart, to smell the life that comes off of him in comforting waves.

John scoots closer, shoving his hands into his pockets and leaning against the tree next to Sherlock. Sherlock, in all his prodigal glory, carefully brings a cigarette to his lips and balances it in between his teeth before lighting it and sucking in smoke.

John stares. He says nothing. And then he holds out his hand, to which Sherlock stares at as if it's some sort of gargantuan flea.

"What," he says, quietly, biting his lip through the cigarette.

"I want one," John whispers, so the wind can't hear.

"You sure? May get cancer."

"Shut up," John chuckles quietly, and then Sherlock removes the cigarette that is resting in his mouth subtly before placing it in between John's chapped lips.

John thinks that it tastes like cigarette smoke, which is completely obvious, but also other things. Like lips. And Sherlock's minty coat, and everything about him.

It spins and dances in the cold morning air like a gypsy, clouding the stars that hang persistently above them. It calms his nerves, and he sinks into the arm that Sherlock slings carefully across his shoulders.

Suddenly, the stars are so much brighter, and he is no longer a man, but a god.

Is there anything left of John? If he were to scalpel open what's left of his chest, from shoulder to shoulder, from navel to collar bone - if he opened himself up and reached inside, would there be anything that didn't have "Sherlock Holmes" written on it in permanent ink?

It's not even that he's beautiful. It's that he is a constant, everlasting thrum that pulsates behind every pen stroke John writes, like he is embedded into his joints and his veins and arteries. He is the calm course of red blood, steady, and clear-headed, and unaffected by the things that drag John down.

So, is there anything he can do to erase Sherlock's name from every part of him? It is written like the ten commandments into his lips, and his eyes, and his arms, and when people look at John, he swears that all they can see is minty blue-green eyes and a long blue scarf. Sherlock has masked every bit of John with him; every vowel John speaks clicks with a harsh sort of precision, every consonant drawn out into the words to bring this imponderable mystery to the way he moves. His limp is now graceful, his trembling in the night a rhythm.

And now, he's sucking on smokes in the blackness of a 4:30 morning, watching the stars under a scraggly oak tree that hardly provides a comfortable seat. And it's so nice; John realizes that he would rather be here - freezing cold and hardly speaking, shortening his life minute by minute - than doing anything else in the entirety of his existence.

Sherlock holds out his hand, the warmth emanating from it almost persuasively, and John entangles his hands in Sherlock's without qualm. It's solid, and real, and it makes a small noise of skin pushing against skin, clenched tightly together to make what seems to be an unbreakable vice.

Sherlock turns to look at John as he parts the cigarettes with his lips and flicks it into the snow, joining a bunch of other small cigarette stubs, and sighs deeply into the cold, making a bubble of misty frost rise from his nostrils.

He feels Sherlock burn into his skin, and he turns ever so slowly to stare at the boy that is looking at him, eyes so new and fresh with youth. He looks like he's staring at the most gorgeous thing he's ever seen, like John is a riddle that he needs to solve more than he needs his own heart to beat.

"Why are you staring at me?" John murmurs, so that there is hardly a puff of breath when he speaks into the cold. It disperses and disappears in merely a second.

Sherlock stays absolutely still. He rubs his thumb across John's knuckles, trying to memorize the feel of the soft ligaments underneath his fingers. Soft, and subtle, and ghosting, he presses his lips against John's in what seems to be a way to gather his strength. John smiles against the kiss, and makes a small noise to voice his appreciation as Sherlock turns back to look at the stars.

But when he says, "Isn't it beautiful," Sherlock is not staring at the landscape - not the view, with the sea gently washing up against the shore. Not the stars, twinkling up in the darkness of the sky, not the sand, or the snow, or the sway of the trees, gently pressing against each other like lovers in the cold. He is staring at John, because, isn't it beautiful?

If John were to look at himself in a mirror, he would see the dotted line where he grafted himself into Sherlock's body. He would think, There's just simply nothing left.

***

"Do you ever draw anymore?" Sherlock leans into John's cheek, toying playfully with a piece of his leather jacket that hangs precariously off the edge of his shirt. "Because you should."

"I should, hmm," John whispers beneath a breath, trying not to produce a noisy cloud of air where his lips part.

Sherlock nods into his shoulder. And he breathes.

John smells like snow. And vanilla. And leather, and freshly-washed jeans, and boots that don't stink of beer and cigarettes, like he'd painted himself over with the color baby blue and then washed his past down the drain.

He wants to say it.

Sherlock wants to spell it into John's skin, watch it sink three layers down, into his heartbeat.

He wants to sing it and dance it and play it to him, with a bow pressed in between his thumb and his forefingers; pray he does it loudly and perfectly, pray he plays it like he always meant to - because he knows how it tastes, now, like buttercups and rose petals and beauty.

He knows that he wants to say it. He knows that he does, and he will, he will, he will. He swears he will, he could just say it now if he wanted to, because now is different and he could say it and it could feel right in his mouth, it could feel right.

He's going to say it. It's going to sing. It's going to chime, like bells in a tornado before the wind sweeps the house off the ground and into Oz, before it goes from black and white into a color so loud you go blind from it. John is color. He is light. He is everything, and if everything is fucked up, so be it, because Sherlock is completely and utterly infatuated with him. Utterly and completely. He can just say it now. It won't hurt; it's at the very, very tip of his pink pink tongue and-

"I love you."

***

It doesn't sink in at first.

He's heard it a million times before, and usually he'd just feel indifferent to the thought of it - but now, it is freezing time itself. So it doesn't sink in. It stays suspended, like oil and water, like sea, and air. It isn't dense, or heavy.

It floats.

If John wanted to, he could poke at it like a balloon, and watch it as it moved around, never changing altitude.

He swears to God, he's heard it too many times to count. From father to mother to mother to step-dad, the resounding "I will" sounds so much better when it's not subtext. The characters smile, and it rains as the words flow out, and then there's a kiss in slow motion; the lips say it nicely, but do they really love each other? Or is it just actors that say the assigned words so they can be paid? John dismisses the love that they feel. Because he knows that it doesn't rain when you say it. You say it when the wind blows cold. You say it when you're begging for your husband to stop hitting you. You say it when you're flying away from paradise in what seems to be a moment that lasts a lifetime, and you say it when she's crying because he left and you're her best friend and you love her in a way you're not supposed to so you just say it, and hope she doesn't retaliate by saying it back.

Maybe it's a lie. Maybe it's all just one stupid lie, meant to sway the unswayable, like in Beauty and the Beast.

Sherlock may constitute as beautiful, but he is most definitely not the Beauty, and John may have a scar in his shoulder from where someone shot him, but he can't be the Beast. So what fairytale is this?

What fucking fairytale?

A/N: I AM FUCKING

SCREAMAMMAMAMSIINgngNgngng

amen.