The Letter - Sherlock Holmes x Reader One Shot

I can't pretend to know where this letter is going to go. I can't guarantee that I'll ever send it, or that you'll ever read it, but I know in my heart and mind that writing this down will help me understand. I've spent hours pouring over you in my mind palace, and I've spent months watching you, weeks observing you, days deducing you, but only recently did I start to truly see you. You're not like the others. You don't ignore me, or find my ill-thought-out sentiments insulting. Nor do you swoon over me, the way some people seem to do, even when I've made it clear I'm unable to return affection. You're different because you're true. And I guess my difficulty is that you're too good to be true. What are you? You're kind and generous, and everything a person should be. You're everything I know I'm not. You're new, different, you're honest but caring. You have a way with words that Shakespeare would have envied, but not in the way that you write, or the way that you try, but in your simplest, most genuine moments. The moments when you first wake up, and call me every name under the sun because I shouldn't be waking you, no matter how urgent the case is. The moments when you think I'm not listening, so you tell people around us stories you think would be beneath me. I've found myself listening to your gossip, your idol chatter, and wanting to know the end of the story. I devour every syllable that drops from your lips, and I crave the sound of your voice from the moment I wake up, to the moment I fall asleep. You seep into my every thought, and for some reason, I allow it. You're my friend, but I have this deep urge to call you “darling” and have you sit close to me at all times. I want to hear your breathing as you read, despite that very thing annoying me when it comes to everyone else. I want to see your eyes light up when you read a chapter you enjoy, and your lips curl when the boy gets the girl. I know that's what you're reading, no matter how much you try to hide it from me. Maybe it's your huge heart that has me captivated, that love you hold inside, waiting to spill forth... enough love for yourself and someone who is incapable of love in the conventional way. You've taught me things I never thought I would need to know, and you've expanded my mind to include my heart. You aren't just simple facts and figures. You're heartbeats, deep breaths, and butterflies in my stomach. You've completed me in a way I never knew possible, and I have no idea how to tell you that I, Sherlock Holmes, love you. Deeply, madly, almost intolerably. Wholly and completely, I'm yours.

Sherlock stands, watching your eyes crinkle at the edges, and your lip being gently bitten as you read your latest story. You look to him as he scrunches up the paper and throws it into the fire. You question him with your eyes, but he sighs and walks away, giving you no clue as to what he was thinking... again.