Work Text:
"I'm leaving."
There's no echo. The words don't ring. They land, heavy and final.
He doesn't know how many seconds pass where he can't process the words. Not fully. Not the shape, not the meaning. All he can feel is the sharp, tight feeling, like his body is collapsing in on itself.
Then his body catches up.
His chest constricts. His throat locks.
A sensation claws its way up his ribs. Panic? Disbelief? Desperation? He doesn't know. It's something far too raw to name.
His heart starts to pound. Fast. Too fast. Too loud.
He tries to speak, but his mouth doesn't move. Tries to think, but his mind blanks. Nothing. Not even a deduction. No words.
And then-
Everything stops.
The clock on the wall behind John halts mid-tick. The rain was hanging, suspended in mid-air like shimmering glass beads, ready to shatter.
Sherlock blinks.
John doesn't.
He's so perfectly still. His fingers are curled tightly around the strap of his bag. The same hands that have both healed and hurt, steady as ever, but trembling just beneath the skin. His mouth is slightly parted like it's been caught between sentences.
The room is still.
Time has stopped.
Sherlock hasn't.
He stands for a few minutes in the silence. He doesn't even know if he's breathing. He doesn't feel the rise and fall of his chest because he's studying John's face. He's studied the same features more times than he'd ever admit. He knows the look on John's face. It's not anger. It's quiet certainty. There's no malice. No hesitation. Just a calm, exhausted ache. The kind you'd wear if you've already left long before you say the words.
Sherlock can barely bring himself to take a step. Everything feels so fragile, like this weird reality might just shatter if he moves, as if one wrong breath could snap this strange moment and throw him full force back into the crushing weight of reality.
But eventually, he does. One foot, then another. Quiet. Careful.
He moves through the flat as if it no longer belongs to him. The clutter is still theirs, but the air feels borrowed.
His eyes catch a photo, half-hidden behind his violin stand. The corner of it is curling with age, but he knows exactly what it is. He doesn't need to pick it up. Doesn't need to look. Doesn't even need to reach into his mind palace to remember. It's so vivid.
They'd been bowling and Sherlock had deduced the angle and speed needed for a strike every round whilst John had whined about not having the barriers up as the ball pathetically rolled down the gutter for the 6th time. The game had finished not long after, much to John's delight. That's how they'd ended up in the photobooth. Sherlock wasn't one for photos, but there was a glint in John's eye that had him go along with it anyway. He remembers John's head on his shoulder and the laugh caught mid-breath. The flash had gone off as he said something stupidly unfunny, but John laughed anyway, and that was enough for a real smile to etch its way onto Sherlock's face. It had been enough. The memory is warm. Like it's heating the coldness that had entered Sherlock's heart since John uttered those words. But then, the memory fades. And he's standing in the flat again.
He's moving again. Still slow, but with more meaning.
He walks past their chairs and stills. It's not the furniture. It's quiet. The kind they used to share effortlessly. There were no plans and no destinations because they didn't need them. They had what they needed. Time. Each other. A mildly warm cup of tea. Sharing the boring details of the day that they wouldn't share with anyone else. The genuine laughs over things only they understood. The kind of picture-perfect days they didn't realise were perfect until they were gone.
His body feels somehow heavier. Like he knows he's lost something. Like he knows it's his fault.
His eyes land on it. The locked drawer. The one where he kept what he swore he didn't need. He swore he'd emptied it time and time again and that it was locked, but they both knew that meant nothing. He remembers the last relapse. Not the headlines. Not the hospital. Not Mycroft. Not the withdrawal. He remembers John holding him whilst he shook. One arm wrapped around his back and the other protectively cradling his head. No words spoken-but they both heard them anyway.
The unasked questions. The unspoken answers.
And just like that, he's back in the flat.
He doesn't move. Doesn't breathe. Just closes his eyes.
A single tear slips down his pale cheek- silent but deafening.
When he opens his eyes, he's back where he started.
Standing in front of John.
John is looking at him.
Waiting.
For what, Sherlock doesn't know. A reason? A plea? A fight?
He says nothing as John walks out of the flat.
Because now, finally, he understands.
John isn't leaving because Sherlock is broken.
He's leaving because Sherlock keeps pretending he isn't.