People don't understand us, not at first, not for a while. He's so cold, and alien-looking, and his voice is all wrong for his face. And then me, well, I look like a real person; my shoulder stiffens up or I laugh at a joke or, you know, understand the basic rules of pub games, and people can relax around me. They just look at him with awe and fear and revulsion, sometimes. The revulsion is the biggest problem. It's easy to stare at him and see his beauty (there's not another word, really, but beauty) and appreciate it, until he opens his mouth.

His intentions are good, most of the time, in his own way. His observations are just…discomfiting. Lestrade understands, sort of, and I try to run as much interference as I can. But there's no good way to shut him up when he starts, besides kissing him, and he gets cranky if I do that too much. Says it cheapens it. He's dreadfully, wonderfully sentimental, you know. Most people miss it, distracted by the apparent sociopathy and the untouchable air around him. But in his own way, he's loyal and honest and all those qualities people attribute to me for whatever odd reasons. And so people don't understand. Because they're not one of the happy few who've nagged and haggled and wormed their way into his life, his real life, and so they don't know that he's capable of any emotions, much less whatever he feels for me; love, or something like it.

As for me, well. I love him, and he knows it, and regardless of all the perfectly logical, absolutely reasonable facts that tell me not to, I'll stay with him until he decides he doesn't want me around. And then I'll still stay, because that's what I do. I stay, and I help, and I force him to remember that he is human, with all the frailties and emotions and fears that come with that state — maybe he has a few less of each, but they are there.