Work Text:
A Discovery of Poems
“When I ask you these questions it’s because I don’t want to get anything wrong. It’s because I don’t know what the right answer out of the list of answers buzzing in my head. I want you to answer because you distract me.”
John Watson looked smug as he sat on the couch when Sherlock walked in. It almost wasn’t enough for Sherlock to notice, John Watson often looked smug at Sherlock, but this time there was something different. First of all John hadn’t said anything yet. There was no “Hello, love,” or “Home so soon?” like usual when Sherlock was the one who did the shopping. The shopping...Sherlock paused as he realized he hadn’t actually bought anything.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Sherlock gave up on the deductions and decided to ask.
“Sherlock Holmes, master of deduction, the one who holds reason above all else,” John paused to reach behind the cushion on the couch. “Is. A. Poet,” John put the familiar shoebox on the small table in front of himself and sat back with his arms crossed. Sherlock stared at the box in horror trying to remember everything he had ever written. All he could remember was that they were all about John and most had been written before they were together. As he was silently panicking John had moved from the couch to stand in front of him. He no longer looked superior and smug but his eyes were no less loving and the smile hadn’t left his face.
“I love them,” he kissed him.
“Some of those don’t apply anymore,” Sherlock said.
“Come on, I know you better than that,” John rubbed his arm reassuringly as he walked back to the couch. “Besides that they’re really good,” he continued opening the well worn box that must have been more than ten years old.
“You’ve been in my closet!” Sherlock realized the lengths John would have to go to in order to get that box. “What were you doing?”
“Calm down,” John put a hand up. “I was just hanging one of your jackets. It wasn’t exactly hidden just there in the middle of the floor.”
Sherlock considered that he may have wanted John to find them subconsciously. He relaxed a little and sat beside him on the couch where John pulled one of the papers out.
“I like these. They should be published,” John said.
“No, not that one,” Sherlock didn’t even need to read it to know which one it was by the way the handwriting looked on the page. That day was not one of his best. He took the paper from John.
“I didn’t mean these. I understand...I just meant why haven’t you pursued this? You’ve obviously got talent for it,” John continued.
“I just never thought it was worth pursuing I guess,” Sherlock shrugged.
“How long have you been writing?” John asked.
“Just since we...met,” Sherlock realized that would give away the timeline for many of them if John decided to read all of them.
“So, all of these are about...me?” John’s own realization arose slowly in his mind and on his face as he said it.
“I thought it was obvious,” Sherlock said.
After that first day Sherlock kept finding little notes left in John’s handwriting around the flat. They were all little pieces of his own poetry for John.
“Oh how forbidden are the words I am not allowed to say to you. Through raindrops or through kisses. Those words feel as if they will never be brought to life.”
Each one included a response from John written underneath: I love you too.
Sherlock was relieved that John had never found these lines before they were together even though at times he wanted to just fling the box at his head because it would have been easier to get his attention that way than any other.
“I am braver when you’re near even if it’s all just in my mind.” Sherlock found this one with nothing more than a heart drawn underneath on the bedside table as he awoke in the middle of the night.
“Oh cruel voice of hope. Where do you come from? You seem to follow me even in the blackest night of my soul. Ever calling. Ever finding my badly broken heart. I wish the tables could turn and I would find you first. To rid, to rid my life of you forever.”
This one was taped to the bathroom mirror on another day. John had written: So melodramatic! Would love to know the story behind this one.
“Let’s forget that the way you look at me is because I’m new. Let’s forget that this would not be this good if it was so obvious.”
Sherlock cringed a little when he found this one because he wrote it after the first brief meeting at the hospital laboratory. Even he thought this reaction was a little over the top.
John’s response: Do I still look at you this way?
“Time stood still as we waited together. We waited for the first move to be made. The barrier to be broken. We waited but neither knew. Even love couldn’t tell us what to do.”
This one was cleverly taped to the clock in the corner of the room. John’s response read: Sorry it took me so long. With three hearts drawn under it in three different colored pens. Sherlock smiled at the effort he was making.
When John was home life was normal as usual with no mention of the poems or anything Sherlock might have been thinking in the past. One day Sherlock started to worry that John’s notes would stop so he sat down and tried to write something for John directly. It wasn’t as easy when he was...trying. He decided this was the reason he was never going to be an artist and gave up. But Sherlock hadn’t noticed that John saw him as he passed by the room on his way to work that morning until this fact appeared in his next note that night.
“You loved me quietly. Gently, softly.” In case you haven’t noticed, that’s all I ever needed. Sherlock smiled at the way John sometimes wrote as if he was standing right in front of him. He put this one in the pile with the rest of them that he was saving in a place that he hoped was more secretive than the shoebox.
The next day there was one note that nearly brought him to tears and threatened to send him spiraling into a hell of sorrow, regret and apologies…”I want to be in love again. I don’t want to leave you. Want all of this to be over. More than you do. Holding onto the one thing I can’t tell you. I need a miracle too.”...if it hadn’t been for the note John left under it:
Sometimes I forget that it was two years for you too. Forgive me.
For this one there were no hearts or x’s and o’s or little bees and flowers it was just John responding to a sentiment which had traveled through time and space to reach him. A sentiment that was never meant to reach him except through allusion of touch, glances and kisses placed on eyelids and hearts.
That night Sherlock took all the notes John had left him out of the drawer in their room and joined John downstairs. He found him in his chair beside the fireplace. They had finished decorating the Christmas tree earlier that evening with Mrs. Hudson who joined John in insisting that they have a proper tree for their first Christmas together and Sherlock had to concede to the two to one vote. But now the house was quiet except for the fire crackling. Sherlock lingered at the edge of the room watching John read a book wondering how he was going to start what he had to say.
John solved the problem for him when he glanced up and spotted him. “Oh, there you are. Thought maybe you went to bed,” he smiled before returning to his book.
“John, I wanted to...talk to you,” Sherlock hadn’t been this nervous to talk to John since his confession after the wedding.
John looked at him with concern changing the corners of his eyes and mouth.
Sherlock turned his attention to the notes in his hand. “There was a lot I wanted to say to you besides how much I loved you. I don’t think I could ever articulate these things even if I did nothing but write you verses until the day I died,” he flipped to the next note. John’s expression had changed from concern to an amused smile as he waited to see where he was going. Sherlock continued. “You’re always with me. That’s pretty self-explanatory. We don’t need to address that one,” this elicited a quiet laugh from John which Sherlock had to ignore if he was going to keep his courage up. “I wrote this one, the one you said was melodramatic, after trying to talk myself into believing that you didn’t love me. But there was a...look after Baskerville. I hated myself for having hope that we would be together because I knew I was going to have to...fall,” he looked at John with tears in his eyes.
John left the chair and stood in the doorway with him. “Skip to the last one,” he whispered.
For this one Sherlock didn’t need to look at the notes. He looked into his eyes deeply. “There’s nothing to forgive. I would still love you even if we existed in a thousand worlds where our lips never met.”
John smiled and brought their faces closer as he whispered. “This isn’t one of them.”