Work Text:
Sherlock sits on a roof in Athens and watches the Perseids burn through darkness.
Somewhere north-west, over England, the Moon has swallowed the Sun.
John will be looking up because there is something worth seeing, even now, when beauty must feel like another form of punishment.
Sherlock closes his eyes and sees him: face lifted, mouth parted, handheld viewer shielding his eyes. He can summon John’s face and none of its warmth. That is cruelty.
A meteor falls. Sherlock counts it for John.
Then another. And another.
For now, this is what they have: the same hour, John beneath a blackened sun and Sherlock beneath falling fire, both staring upward while hundreds of miles lie between them.
He misses John’s voice. His temper. The striped jumper. The way John says Sherlock when he is furious, frightened, fond. He misses being touched by someone who never knew how necessary his hands had become.
He should have kissed him.
The thought hurts more than any fall.
Sherlock wants to go home. Instead, he watches the last streak fade over the Acropolis.
Then he stands, checks the pistol at his back, and leaves the roof.
Moriarty has one associate in Piraeus. Sherlock has his address.
John is watching the sky.
Sherlock goes to make certain he lives long enough to see another one together.