A/N: This is part one of a two part 221B drabble series. Post Reichenbach Fall. Not beta'd, not Britpicked. All mistakes are my own. Enjoy!
The Ones Who Stay
Written by Amputation
Rain is a peculiar thing. So oft used as a literary allusion, symbolising sadness or cleansing. It is prosaic, naught more than condensation from vapour in the atmosphere, over spilling when too much to hold. And yet humankind is obsessed with the phenomena.
John Watson has no such attachments to the water that falls by force of gravity. Droplets bead on his eyelashes, run in rivulets down his face with rhythmic drip-dripping from the tip of his nose. His ashen hair darkened, saturated with rainfall, plastered to his forehead. Wetness slips down into his jacket, beneath the collar popped against the wind. The sky steadily darkens, shifting from the pale grey of late afternoon to blue-black, morbidly similar to the colour of fresh bruises on pale flesh. His hands, once clenched tight are slack and the rain marks them too, in paths of moisture between scarred knuckles and powerful phalanx to drip steadily from weathered fingertips. Denim once deep navy is darkened to black, waterlogged and heavy against powerful muscles beneath; chafing with every step should he choose to seek shelter from the persistent deluge.
The headstone is subject to rain, too. The most visceral reminder of Sherlock Holmes is no longer reflective, black stone having dulled from three years passage of time and ever-changing elements. He won't be coming back.