Title: Then and Now

Summary: An angst story that has nothing to do with Reichenbach. You are welcome. How do you mourn for someone who is gone, but still here? AU, John tries to cope with the death of the love of his life, and realizes that too much was left unsaid. Feel free to interpret what lead to this scenario as you will, I wanted to leave a bit up for interpretation. Anyway, R&R, please enjoy and don't hate me for torturing them so.

He would be better off dead.

They would both have been.

John knows that now.

He thinks it a million times a day, chants it to himself like a relentless stab to the chest every night as he falls asleep. For a while he would scold himself for thinking like that, for not searching for some sort of hope on the horizon, anything to make it a little more bearable. But now he can't think any other way.

In the mornings he awakens far too early, usually when the dull London light has not yet penetrated the horizon, and sits in the kitchen. He makes coffee, but rarely drinks any of it, rather allowing the steam to hover above the mug and twist into the air until it is all but gone. He watches the patterns it makes, and sometimes wonders what Sherlock would say if he were here. If he were really here.

He waits until the mug is icy before he can manage to drag himself into the bedroom, to put a hand on the knob and open the door and let his own personal hell drag him down to a pit of the darkest despair he can imagine.

The man always sits in the middle of the bed, staring blankly at the wall. It's not the intellectual thoughtfulness of before, and the eyes which now haunt John more than he can even describe, have lost all their luster. They are vacant. Not deep in thought, not simply drifting off in contemplation of the world's questions, but empty. Gone. Broken. Like an attic which has remained un-opened for too long, and has caved in on itself, its previous glories crumbling away with the foundations, despite the treasures which may have once been stashed amid its rubble. Everything about him is gone. The tender frame is still there, but the insides are gone. The tick of genius which used to light a room to blinding proportions is now a faint pin-point of a glow at best, and somedays John can hardly see a man at all.

John will walk over and sit on the bed, following the man's gaze to the TV on the wall. It's always on. Sherlock hated TV. John hates TV now too.

The man and John will sit and stare at the neon shapes on the screen, and John will pretend to be interested for the man's sake. Finally he will have to tear away his gaze, and the blinding pain will hit him like a ton of bricks. The man on the bed is skinny, too skinny, and the bones on his shoulders and back are almost skeletal, to the point where his entire being looks as though it might crack with just a shove. The once lustrously thick curls are gone, mown away to make room for the web of scars along the hairline, dark and long and ugly. Without his hair there is something very feeble and alien about the pale face, but John still thinks it is the most beautiful face he has ever seen.

The beauty almost makes up for the shooting pains which radiate to his knees every day he looks at the man.

You see, it's not the scars or the silence or the empty eyes which torture John so much that he wants to scream out loud.

It's the hands.

They have retained their perfect shape, and still have the soft, porcelain skin of before, but they never move. They sit, motionless on the comforter, and it is this which makes John wish he could be dead. It was not even a comparison, there was no weighing of pros and cons, just a single wish that John would give anything to have granted. Because this, whatever he was doing right now? This wasn't living. This was surviving.

Sometimes they will speak to one another, if the man is having a good day, but somehow these conversations are far worse than the endless silence. They remind too much of what used to be. What should have been. And what is now gone.

"What's your favorite color, John?"

"Blue."

"Why?"

"Because it matches the color of your eyes."

Pause.

"I like yellow."

"And why's that?"

"Because its happy. I like being happy, don't you John?"

"I do."

"Are you happy, John?"

John squeezes the man's hand, and moves as though to brush a wayward coil of hair off his face, but then remembers that those days are over. "I am." The words are toxic on his tongue, but he accepts the pain, staring into the transparent eyes before him and searching for a sign, anything, any proof that Sherlock Holmes is still here. "I am as long as you are."

The days go on, and the conversations become less and less until they don't speak at all.

The crumbling vessel begins to wilt into the earth, and John can feel the gates of hell dig deeper into the flesh of his heart. John sits beside the man and begins to cry for the first time in almost a year. The tears are slow and silent, but flow with a constant pressure down his face, pooling on the man's chest, drenching their intertwined hands. The man's lips move ever so slightly, until one word escapes, pleading, almost like a prayer.

"Please."

John's tears fall harder, and the sobs rack through his body until the whole room is aching with his sorrow. He has been waiting for this moment for a long time. He kisses each of the man's fingers, laying a trail of teardrops along each knuckle. He slides in behind the man under the blanket, and curls one arm around the fragile body, holding him as tightly as he can without breaking him. He reaches for one of the pillows on the floor, weighing it in his hands. Its so light. The white case is soft and clean, and John lets his free hand caress it, while the other strokes the tender skin on the hand he is holding with such care. He lays one more kiss on the hand, inhaling the man's scent, trying to remember it all. His shaking hands lower the weapon to the man's face, and John lets the tears fall as he feels the man struggle beneath him. He presses harder, the downy fabric smothering the tender face beneath. The breaths become very quick and then very slow, and after what seems like an eternity, they stop completely. John pulls away, throwing the pillow to the ground and clutching even more tightly at the empty creature in his arms. He cries until there is nothing left, until there is nothing left to do or say but the three words neither had ever found the strength to utter.

"I love you."

The words are flimsy, and John can practically see them float away out the window when he pulls the trigger.