A/N: Huge thanks to gryffindorandproud on tumblr who did the amazing cover art for this story, based on cover art she did for the whole series (which ffn has no place for, unfortunately).
John wandered about the flat, taking it all in, every detail, all of the memories they'd accumulated, the odd and the mundane – more of the former than the latter – the touches that made a flat home, the books, the photographs, the souvenirs, even the dust. Every day, recorded in the things around him, the faces that grinned back at him from framed photos, the dog-eared postcards from friends all over the world, kept in a drawer near the fridge, sometimes with a spare set of human eyeballs or a stray finger. The tacky magnets, which Sherlock insisted on purchasing everywhere they went, whenever they went somewhere new.
Sherlock sat patiently on the couch, resting against his Union Jack pillow, so worn now that it was really threadbare, but he refused to get rid of it. John didn't bother fighting it; everyone had to hang onto something, even a man like Sherlock who derided sentimentality in others. He had kept that paramedic's blanket for years, until John had finally put his foot down, when the thing had been little better than a duster. He went through bunny slippers about one pair every year to year and a half, refusing to budge, to just get a normal pair for about the house.
What good was a home, he argued, if you couldn't be comfortable in it?
True.
John eased himself down on the couch. Sherlock looked over at him, grey eyes still bright, still windows into a mind that John couldn't keep up with even on his best days.
And there had been so many good days.
In the end, far more good than bad. It was a balance that he couldn't argue with.
"Are you sure about this?" Sherlock asked.
They came round to this again.
"Are you?" John replied.
"You could get treatment," Sherlock pointed out. John only nodded; that was true, he could.
"I'm eighty-four, Sherlock," he replied. "I'm an old man. I don't want to put myself through that. But I will, if you want me to."
"No," Sherlock said. "I want this to be your choice."
"It is my choice, then," John said easily. "But it doesn't have to be yours."
"We've both outlived the average life expectancy for males in Britain, John. If this is your choice, then it's also mine. But you have more time, you know."
"I know," John said, then grimaced. "But it's already worse than last week, and last week was worse than the week before. How long before I forget what it's like to feel good and think that pain is normal? No," he shook his head. "No."
Sherlock nodded. Even now, his hair was as thick as it had ever been, but a shocking white, so vibrantly different from the dark hair he'd had when they'd first met. A lifetime ago. John's had gone grey and thinned but never fully disappeared, for which he was absurdly grateful. More grateful though that Sherlock's had only changed colour, not thickness, so he could still weave his fingers into it. He would have missed that, if Sherlock had lost his hair.
Plus, Sherlock would have looked like a right twit without hair. The thought made John smile.
Sherlock stood, extending a hand, helping John up. His husband was still as steady on his feet as he'd ever been, although his left leg gave him twinges during rain or snowstorms, as did his ribs, although less often. Ghosts of old injuries, never fully banished. But never allowed to cast a pall over everything else.
John accepted the help – moving about was getting more difficult, pain radiated often from his hips and back, up his spine, down his legs. He could usually get around it, but standing up from seated was the hardest. And he was nowhere near as young as he'd once been.
As he'd been in the picture on the table next to the couch.
Sherlock looking triumphant, John laughing at something one of the witnesses had said. It had sat there since they'd received it from the photographer, and even Sherlock had sometimes remembered to dust it, a clear sign of what it meant to him.
Sentimentality.
John picked it up. Sherlock arched an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. Instead, taking John's hand again, he led them into the bedroom. Pale afternoon sunlight slanted through the windows, dust motes dancing in the beams, across their bed. Not the first bed they'd had, of course, they'd worn that one out pretty quickly and Sherlock had embarrassed the hell out of the salesman on the next purchase, requiring that he sell them something that could hold up to their shagging.
John had had to sit down in the nearest chair, he'd been laughing so hard at the man's stunned expression. Sherlock had been annoyed, because he hadn't been trying to shock anyone; he really had wanted something more durable.
It had made John laugh harder, until tears had rolled down his cheeks, but he'd never been able to get Sherlock to understand.
In the end, the salesman had been swapped for a saleswoman, who had taken Sherlock's request seriously, fighting down on laughter of her own.
John sat down on his side of the bed, putting the framed photograph beside him, angling it so that Sherlock could see it as well. Sherlock settled himself onto the bed, long legs stretched out, crossed at the ankle. Relaxed, but waiting. John pulled open the nightstand drawer on his side of the bed, fishing out two small vials, two syringes and a small piece of flexible rubber.
"Are you absolutely sure?" he asked, looking over his shoulder. The movement was not as easy as it had once been, but Sherlock watching him on the bed was familiar. How many times had they been in this position? Impossible to tell. At least, for him; John thought Sherlock might give him a reasonably accurate count.
"I'm not going on alone," Sherlock said simply. "I can't." There was nothing but reason in his voice, statement of fact, acceptance. In a way, John considered that they were lucky. They had warning. And four and a half good decades behind them. It was a lot more than most people were allowed.
"All right," John said. "Give me your arm."
Sherlock rolled up his shirtsleeve, extending his arm, and John expertly wrapped the piece of rubber just above Sherlock's elbow, tapping his skin lightly, finding a vein.
"How much is it?" Sherlock enquired. John shook his head. Even now, ever curious.
"Two hundred milligrams," he said.
"And that's enough?"
"One twenty would do it easily," John replied. "So yes."
Hands still steady after all this time, he prepped the syringe and injected it expertly into Sherlock's arm. His husband frowned at the sensation, but didn't say anything.
"Do you need me to do yours?" he asked.
"I don't trust you enough for that," John replied and Sherlock rolled his eyes. John chuckled, unwinding the rubber strip and wrapping it easily around his own arm, although he did get Sherlock to tie it. Injecting himself was not hard; he'd had enough needles and blood drawn in recent months that he was starting to look like an aged drug addict. He was glad the vein didn't collapse from the repeated abuse, and the morphine felt warm hitting his blood stream.
"How long does this take?" Sherlock asked. As if it were one last experiment.
"Not long," John replied. "It's like going to sleep. It is going to sleep."
Sherlock nodded as John binned the two needles and the vials, as well as the rubber strip. He stretched out, feeling old twinges in his left shoulder and more recent twinges from his back and hips. The shoulder was like an old friend, or old enemy, so familiar it was impossible to remember a time when he hadn't felt it, although there had once been a John without this old injury. And even a John for whom it was a new injury.
Sherlock wrapped his arms around him and John reciprocated, inhaling deeply, breathing in the long familiar scent of his husband. Not a bad thing to have at the end, he considered. The feel of Sherlock's arms around him, his body curled against John's, was the best thing John could think to have right now.
Without even thinking about it, because he'd been doing it so long, he rested a hand on the back of Sherlock's head, laced into his hair, and stroked his husband's scalp with his thumb. Sherlock's lips twitched, his grey eyes dancing.
"On the statistically insignificant off chance that there is something more, I look forward to seeing you there," Sherlock said. John blinked, then grinned.
"That would be nice," he said. But even if it weren't, four and a half decades was enough. He'd have taken more, had it been granted, but it hadn't, and he wasn't upset or bitter about it. He wouldn't have traded a moment with Sherlock for the world. No one was luckier than he was, to have found this mad man and been given a lifetime of love with him.
"I love you, John," Sherlock said, pressing his lips to John's forehead. John raised his head, kissing Sherlock lightly on the lips in return.
"I love you, too, Sherlock," he replied.
Nothing else to say. Sherlock closed his eyes and John cast one final look around the room, then did the same, listening to Sherlock's breathing, feeling his heart beating.
It was sleep that took them first, together.
Mycroft Holmes climbed the stairs to 221B slowly; they were steep and he was long past young or even spry. Besides, there was no need to hurry anymore. He'd come over as soon as he'd received the copies of Sherlock's and John's wills, changed at the same time, on the same day, to the same beneficiary. It had been enough for Mycroft to understand the message, and he wished his brother would have contacted him, but in all things, Sherlock remained ever stubborn, always holding Mycroft at arm's length. The reach of that arm had changed through time, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter.
But he understood.
The flat was silent. The house, that their old landlady, Mrs. Hudson, had left to them when she'd died twenty-six years ago, was still and quiet. A young couple lived in the ground floor now, but were out, probably at work.
Mycroft wasn't surprised to find the door unlocked. He stepped inside and glanced around, but the living room was empty, unoccupied, weak sunlight streaming through the windows, across untouched surfaces, the empty couch, the empty chairs, the silent television.
An empty patch untouched by dust on the table next to the couch told Mycroft something was missing.
He doubted it had been stolen.
He made his way into the back bedroom and found them, curled against each other.
He'd always hated when people described the recently dead as looking as though they were sleeping.
But it was apt, he realized. They really did look as though they'd fallen asleep next to one another, except neither was moving. Too still. He wondered how many nights they'd actually slept like that, curled up against one another, as if space between them was intolerable.
He crossed the room, noting the picture on the beside table next to John's body. The wedding photo they'd kept in the living room. Not stolen. Moved in here as a last reminder. Sherlock, thirty-four, looking triumphant. John, thirty-nine, laughing at something said off camera. Forty-five years.
Mycroft had initially thought it wouldn't even last one.
His brother and John, always a surprise.
He touched his brother's cheek now. It was still warm. It hadn't been long, perhaps less than half an hour. A wry smile touched his lips. John would have been able to tell him, probably to the minute.
An unfamiliar tread on the stairs made him turn and a woman entered the room a moment later, looking unsurprised by the men on the bed, but surprised by Mycroft.
"Who are you?" she demanded. Not entirely suspicious, but wary.
"Mycroft Holmes."
"Ah." Josephine Walsh would recognize the name if not the man; Mycroft had never met her, but he knew who she was. Tricia Remsen and Henry Walsh's only daughter. Born when her mother, Tricia, had been thirty-seven, and then hadn't wanted to tempt a risky pregnancy with a high possibility of problems as she hit forty. Henry had died in a riot in Cairo when Josephine had been nineteen, and Tricia had died three years ago, from a stroke.
"How did you know to come?" Mycroft asked.
"They told me."
He raised an eyebrow and she circled the bed, looking sadly at the two men lying there, and tapped the bin with her foot.
"Morphine. Who do you think got it for them?"
Mycroft felt a stab of irritation.
Sherlock was still his brother – had still been his brother.
"I thought the tenet was still 'do no harm'."
Josephine had followed in her mother's footsteps, becoming a doctor, although never joining the military.
"Yes," Josephine agreed, meeting his eyes squarely. She took after her mother more, blue eyes, blond hair, a bit on the short side. "Is this more harmful than asking an eighty-four year old man to undergo a treatment that still has an eighty percent failure rate? Even if he'd survived that, pancreatic cancer still has the highest incidence of recurrence of any cancer. And is this any more harmful than asking Lock to live without John? They were my uncles, and I love them. I respect their decision. I hope you do, too."
Mycroft only nodded.
"You have a copy of their wills, I assume?" he asked.
"I do," Josephine replied.
"What will you do with the house?"
"I don't know," she said. "Certainly I won't evict the people downstairs; John said they were considerate and always paid their rent on time."
Mycroft nodded vaguely. He wanted to ask about leaving the flat the way it was, but Sherlock would have scoffed at that.
Sentimental.
"Will you leave that here?" he asked, nodding at the framed photograph.
"I was going to take it home," Josephine replied, but then softened at his expression. "But yes. I have others."
"Everything belongs to you," Mycroft replied.
She nodded, crossing her arms over her stomach.
"I'm going to call an ambulance," she said. "If you don't want to be here when they arrive, I think I'd understand."
Not because it was difficult, but because she knew enough about him.
"No," Mycroft said. "If you don't mind, I believe I'll stay."
He did, until the coroner took the bodies away, loading them in the same ambulance at his request, then Mycroft left Josephine to handle the police and details, and left Baker Street for the last time.