The Apartment
It had been three years.
Not long enough to forget, but soon enough to hurt.
Sherlock watched John sleep next to him.
A buckle of muscle was working into his back, but he didn't dare stir from John's side, a strange connection forged between their hands he could not break.
The apartment was empty, save the ancient grey mattress on the floor. Mold was the only other color around, save the grey of the city nighttime.
The windowpanes rattled with the sound of a passing train, the window itself painted shut.
Sherlock studied their entwined hands. He could see the muscles and bones and veins in John's hand, the fingers perfectly bent from bad breaks, the thin silver scar on his thumb. John was flesh and bone and blood, the proof of this pulsing against Sherlock's hand. Sherlock knew the names for the muscles and bones of the hand he was holding, but he had no idea what strange connection prevented his heart from letting go of it. Perhaps it was because John was irrevocably human while Sherlock was a living ghost, a shadow of the man three years ago.
The apartment shuddered as the train moved on and silence fell again.
Sherlock supposed that he loved John still. The idea made his hands hurt, aching up his arm and forcing its way into his ribcage.
It had been three years.
As grey morning light filtered through the filthy window, the two men woke. They dressed in silence.
"We can't do this again."
"I know."
"Not now," John sighed and ran a hand through his short, sandy hair. "But we never did get the timing right, did we?"
"Hardly ever."
"Maybe one day."
"Maybe."
The silence stretched between them.
Sherlock fought back tears as he embraced John one more time.
"Good-bye, Sherlock."
"Good-bye, John."
Sherlock walked out the door, leaving the decrepit apartment alone with its old master, trying to leave his memories with the click of the door.
But the apartment and its old master continued to haunt Sherlock, for he decided it would never be long enough to forget.
It had been three years, after all.