Work Text:
He looks aged and tired. Ragged. Stricken. His eyes look haunted. Perhaps they are. Has he been dogged by the specter of me like I have been by the phantom pain of having him torn from my side? Is he not now seeing a ghost?
I know what I want from him, but what I want ceased to matter three years ago. What I wanted sank and disappeared, but I hope that we can find it again. I am the detective, the locator of lost things, but I must have his aid in this. As much as I desired his help before, that’s how much I need it now. Would it please him to know he was never the one who required a crutch?
I’m afraid. It’s a different fear from my recent nightmares, dreams of hunter and hunted, of blood and death. I tell myself this fear is less because, no matter what happens, I have guaranteed his existence. John Watson will remain. My heart refuses to listen, to understand that the loss of him from my life would not be as excruciating as the loss of him from this world.
His lips move, forming the words in his eyes — how? why? Mine beg forgiveness as I give the only answer I know, “Because I could not let you burn.”