Sherlock BBC fic: Life Goes On (pre-J/S, post-TRF, Angst)
Title: Life goes on
Spoilers: The Reichenbach Fall (s02e03)
Rating: PG-13 for slight mentions of a canon character death
Pairing: Either Pre-J/S or Hinted J/S slash
Summary: Life goes on, John thinks. Until it doesn't.
Words: 288
A/N: Drabble inspired by the title of John’s blog post in the Hounds, and buckets of Reichenfeels.
Life goes on, John thinks. Until it doesn't.
Life doesn't go on. It's pushed forward by the relentless turning of the clocks, the ruthless rise and set of the sun, by the time and the tide that wait for no man, but leave no man behind either. Life goes on, but it snags on the brambles in the path. It slows and stumbles and stutters and tumbles and every breath is hitched, because nothing will ever be painless again.
He moves on because he can't stay. Not physically. He's not allowed to sit at Sherlock's gravestone the way he wants to, and not move. He doesn't want to move, not physically, not temporally. But he has to. Life goes on. He must eat, drink, breathe, because that is what Sherlock died for. Sherlock's sacrifice will not have been in vain. He will survive. He will exist, and persist in doing so.
He will not do stupid things to put himself at risk, no matter that when he does, he can almost feel Sherlock's huffing warm breath in a laugh over the top of John's ear, so close, and so warm. He can almost feel the line of Sherlock’s body behind his, confidence and warmth down his spine.
But his heart has caught on that snag, that thorn bush he's just walked through. It caught, and tore straight out of the cavity in his chest, and out of his skin, and it's there, growing cold and hard by Sherlock's gravestone. And he doesn't want it back. He doesn't want to feel how it aches in the cold, and trembles from loneliness. He's better off like this.
He'll go on. He'll survive. Life goes on.
But his heart will not.