A/N: Q: What do you get when you combine tarmac angst, the remnants of an AP Literature exam, and extended metaphor?

A:

So, here's the thing: you're not a writer.

It's not that you don't have anything to say, because you do. More than most people, really. But when the subject in question is John Watson, the words get jammed up in your throat, stuck behind your teeth, sealed to the roof of your mouth. And because of this chronic writer's block, you've been glued to the desk of your mind palace, writing the same love story over and over and over, without ever reaching the ending. The words always scribble off mid-sentence and fly off the page, away and out of reach.

When you first pick up a pen, you are perhaps too ambitious, because in this draft of the story, John loves you upon first sight. He is charmed by the quirky arrangement of the flat, baffled by your brilliant deductions, and utterly entranced with your mad, exciting life.

"You're absolutely brilliant, you know that?" John says in the cab, after you've solved the case and saved the day. He's sitting close enough that your shoulders brush and your hands graze on the seat. He smells like cinnamon, aftershave, and something dark and rich.

"It was nothing," you reply, your gaze focused on the passing scenery. His thumb strokes over yours and that small sensation feels like enough to shift the earth's tectonic plates.

The car jolts on a right turn and John uses it as an excuse to slide his entire palm over yours. "I mean it, Sherlock."

You clear your throat. "Do you?"

"Of course, you're incredible," John says, warm as sunlight. And it doesn't even matter that you've known this man for less than twenty four hours, because he's already fixed something desperate and broken deep inside of you. "Bloody incredible."

After that, John moves in and the world comes together in perfect harmony. Happily ever after, you two chase criminals down dark alleyways, share quiet laughter in the dimly-lit sitting room, trade lingering glances along the pavement.

And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods makes heaven drowsy with the harmony

He kisses you in the rain, on the porch, against an alley wall. He thaws the stony barrier around your heart and allows you to roost within the warm hollows of his soul. Every glance is crackling with warmth and every breath is filled with I love you I love you I love you I love you.

Except, it doesn't quite work out that way, so revisions must be made.

In your second draft, things take a bit longer (call it a more realistic approach). John moves in and he's still covered from head to toe in old scars—that is to say, he still uses his cane and jumps at loud noises and wakes up shouting for help in the middle of the night. He drinks his coffee black and smiles when you say clever things, but he doesn't glow for you just yet; that comes much later.

He looks at you the same way for months and months, until you walk into the kitchen one morning and there he is, looking at you from across the breakfast table as if you're the sun. He places his hand over yours and squeezes it gently, a small gesture to express a monumental shift.

"Why now?" you ask, staring down at your joined fingers.

John smiles so that his blue eyes crinkle at the edges, and it feels as if dawn is spilling across the table: bright and teeming with hope. "I've felt this way for ages, Sherlock, have you really not noticed?"

Flushed cheeks, downcast eyes. "I didn't think—I scarcely hoped to think that you might…that you might possibly…"

"I do," he says softly, pressing a kiss to your knuckles. "I do, Sherlock."

And with that, you two settle into something new and tentative, as precious and carefully-guarded as a freshly unfurled bloom.

Except, that doesn't happen either, so you mar your clean script with even more pen scratches, blacked out lines, and ripped pages.

You rewrite and redraft and crumple forests upon forests of paper, because the plot doesn't go where you want it to, the bloom never blossoms, the dawn doesn't break, and the truth is that after John moves in, he looks at you the same the same the same the same.

So that's why your third draft is a tragedy. In this version, you die and John moves on, and a new protagonist called Mary Morstan walks onto the stage. She is beautiful and kind and everything that you are not. The chorus sings that she is the one, the long-awaited wife, and the denouement is the moment when you finally realize that you and John are Done, because someone better came along and got to him first.

So, you write a song for their wedding. You fold paper swans and help with the seating chart and give Mary a million different suggestions when John gets sick of choosing between lilac or lavender, eggshell or cream.

(In the quiet nooks of midnight, you write love ballads that wrench out of your violin like claws, drip off of your bow like blood; in the mornings, you embellish invitations and sample desserts.)

"You should visit more often," Mary says with a smile, months and months later, one hand resting on her swollen stomach. Pregnancy has given her a bright glow of happiness and she reminds you of the sun. "We miss you around here, Sherlock."

"Of course, Mary," you reply, all according to the script. "I miss you two as well."

"Us three," she corrects, delight creasing the corners of her emerald green eyes. Her hand spreads wider across her belly and the light from the window catches on her wedding ring like a jewel.

...

But that's not the whole story either, because the ink stutters and bleeds across the page, characters act in ways unexpected, and the binding of the book begins to unfurl. In this draft, there is an emphasis on the duality of characters: pretty smiles conceal scowls and white gloves cover bloodied palms.

So when Mary shoots you, stares you down and fires a bullet straight into your chest, it doesn't come as a surprise. And as you're convulsing on the floor, wracked with pain and agony, you decide that instead of seeking revenge, instead of fighting to bring her down, you forgive her. Because in the end, your life doesn't matter. You're willing to die if it means John's happiness.

(Perhaps that is your hamartia.)

In the next few chapters, half a year blurs by. Along the way, there is a gunshot on Christmas day, handcuffs, helicopters, and your brother soberly pacing his office, mumbling six months, Sherlock, six months under his breath like a prayer.

So, the fourth and final draft is tricky. It's always difficult to write an ending when you yourself are not quite sure where the plot will lead. It's like ambling through the woods, attempting to draw a map as you continuously stumble across new territory. You aren't quite sure what to say, because anything could happen at this point.

For one, the setting is unexpected. You're on a plane to your grave and your hand is still warm from when John shook it goodbye. Scenery outside flashes by in a blur of blue sky and grey runway, and the air smells like antiseptic. The syringe of cocaine sits in your palm like a jewel and you can't help but think that it would be so easy to just disappear for a bit.

It wouldn't be a definite ending, really, just a rest. A hiatus. A pause. You hold the needle up to the light and stare at its long silver dagger, sharp and delicate as a hummingbird's beak. Where have you seen this before? This dramatic last attempt to find escape through unsavory means? Shakespeare's poisoned lovers? Sophocles's hanged queen? Huxley's soma'd civilians? It's cliched, surely, and the last thing you'd like to do is be predictable.

The other route is silent suffering. The iron-chested, square-jawed fate of literary heroes and greek warriors all throughout history.

Or perhaps there is a twist ending. Perhaps deus ex machina will sweep all of your troubles away and deliver you from this misery. Perhaps the plane will turn around and John will be there waiting, his eyes wet and his arms open.

"Sherlock," he'll say, "you can't leave. You can't go."

"Why?" you'll ask.

"Because I love—I love, I…"

Except that doesn't quite work either, does it? You can fill your epigraph with romantic poems and beautiful lyrics all you want, but sometimes the characters roam the page autonomously and stray from those lines. John can't say the words. The needle winks and glimmers in the florescent light. The plane soars farther and farther away from the tarmac.

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?

Where are the reassuring motifs? The symbolic return of furniture, the parallels between phrases, the dramatic rising action? Perhaps there wasn't enough anaphora in the third draft. Perhaps you should've said I'm sorry, I never wanted to leave you. I'm sorry, I would do anything to make amends. I'm sorry, you are the only person in this entire world that matters. Maybe the diction wasn't correct. Maybe instead of shrouding the flat in secrets and longing and wistfulness, you should have painted the walls with honesty and hope and love.

I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,

But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,

Then falls thy shadow

It's a break, you remind yourself. It's not an ending. Sometimes you need to step back from your work and take a moment to reflect. It's—necessary. You need it but you don't need it; you're not an addict, after all. Sometimes revisions reveal solutions the author previously did not consider; a second glance clarifies points that were perhaps too ambiguous.

But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,

Yes, all the time, because the dance was long

John has Mary, Mary has the baby, and what do you have? A pen. A sheet of paper. All of those loose leaf notes fluttering about in your mind palace, marked with revisions and buried beneath second, third, fourth drafts. You're not a writer: poetry is too abstract, epics are too long, prose makes the soft mass behind your ribs ache. You don't know how to tell a story, do you?

I have forgot much, gone with the wind,

Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,

Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind

Maybe there are alternate endings you can explore. Perhaps Mary will disappear or the phone will ring with John's name on the screen, or maybe you'll wake up three years ago with no scars and no grey hairs, and you'll gasp in relief because John will be just a room away, waiting for you with tea in hand.

Except, the rewrites can't go that far back, erasers only erase so much, and certain lines cannot be scratched out. You have to remind yourself that the first drafts weren't real; only the present exists. So even though you want to go back to those cherished, dog-eared chapters, you cannot. This is still a tragedy, still a broken heart, and right now you're still thinking about the way his warm fingers on your pulse felt like kisses. Only the past rests at your fingertips and you refuse to let any more of it slip away.

The night is thine;

and I am desolate and sick of an old passion

I have been faithful to thee, in my fashion

So, you close your eyes, plunge the needle deep, and reread the entire story, starting with the very first line.

A/N: Thank you all for reading! To my old readers: I know I've been MIA for a while, and I'm so sorry about that! Life has been crazy and I haven't had the chance to write in ages. I promise sometime this week I will update my multi-chaptered stories (Operation Jealousy, In the Rose Gardens). Thanks for being patient, everyone, and don't forget to review! :)

Quoted works in order of appearance:

Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare

Ode to a Nightingale By John Keats

Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae by Ernest Dowson