The snow clings to his collar, his hair. White on black, a delicious contrast. It melts slowly in the cold, the delicate droplets left behind shining silver in the moonlight. Another snowflake falls, quietly different from the others as they are all different from each other. It settles on his scarf, a nest of woven blue.
In the stillness of the snowing world, the landscape blurred with hazy sheets of white drifting down, time itself stops. His heart slowing to a gentle beat, a lull of notes swimming through the veins beneath his skin. And his lips tingle, watching, another delicate flake of white catching on one dark eyelash.
"John."
His name, a whisper, a solemn oath in this world of drifting white. And he swallows against the tightness in his own throat.
"Sherlock."
He brushes his hand gently over that black-clad shoulder, the flakes melting beneath his touch. Such delicate things, snowflakes. Such a short life, destined for an early end. And he thought that would be them, once, struggling vainly against the harshness of the world. How long ago it seems now and yet only months, a year at the outside. Time slipped between his fingers like the ill-fated snow.
"John."
A lone tear glistens in his verdigris eye, brother to the melted snow, swathing them as a blanket.