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Silence was the most hateful. Memories surfaced in that emptiness that could and would not be ignored. Before it was desolate landscapes of beige, the searing heat of the sun, the staccato of gunfire, the burning pain of a bullet ripping through flesh, blood, and bone. Before was better. Silence now brought the feeling of running forward, but never fast enough. It brought the fall. The desperate flailing of limbs as gravity took over, a coat flapping behind as an inadequate parachute to the inevitable. Wind whipping through dark curls. Next came the body on the ground. A halo pooled on the ground around those curls now drenched in the wine of oxygenated blood.
John raked his fingers through his own short locks, grabbing and pulling on the strands in an effort to remove his thoughts from his traitorous brain through the pain that lanced from his scalp. Pain was better than thinking, but the physical pain was temporary. It was never enough to truly dislodge the emotional turmoil that lay so heavily on him.
He had been afraid. So afraid of his own feelings that he never spoke a word. What if he had? Would that have been enough to keep Sherlock off of that roof? To step back instead of forward? If he had known that he was loved, would he still be here? Would John have been able to run his fingers through those raven curls instead of his own short gold?
The problem with questions that have no answers is that you can never be satisfied. It’s an endless cycle of what ifs and maybes and if only.
John took a deep, shuddering breath, exhaling loudly just to fill the space around him with a sound. Anything would be better than the suffocating silence of their- his -now empty flat.
His eyes strayed to the vacant leather chair across from him. Permanently empty. Forever silent. He couldn’t ignore the growing suspicion that the silence of his own grave would be preferable to that unending stillness. Perhaps in that silence he would find peace.