A/N: Sorry this is so lame! I was bored and am determined to get back into writing. Enjoy...
Sherlock stands, palm open, upward facing, empty. Skin so smooth, milky white and inconceivably fragile.
John breathes in, considering the unspoken, and yet resounding, request. The doctor's eyelids flutter closed, gently falling over uncertain eyes, covering their hesitancy with a sheet of skin so that its presence may not be known.
He is in the presence of an observant man, however, and nothing can be hidden.
Sherlock's gaze travels rapidly over John's face, observing and classifying each of his expressions. Emotions flit across his face, a dance of pain and betrayal, a dance that would have been beautiful to witness if it had not been so elegantly heart wrenching. The detective's hand quivers, steadies, and then drops. It happens so quickly, one second it is in the air, an offering, the next it hangs limp next to his slim body, a rejection.
John did not forget the expression on Sherlock's face, a look of anguish so raw that he felt it wafting from the other man, slicing into his skin with each breath, each moment, like a self-defence mechanism had activated in Sherlock's body, protecting him from further harm by forcing his own anguish onto its perpetrator, accusing.
John would never forget that expression, that feeling, had never forgotten it.
He had never seen Sherlock again. Never had the courage.
And now, everyday he felt that pain, that ache throughout his body that proved the existence of what he could have had, what he had given away, what he would never have. That proved the existence of Sherlock Holmes, of what had been Holmes and Watson, and of what was now…a faded memory.
A/N: Thanks for reading! Please review.