John sat on the bench, eyes fixed on the paving slab in front of him. After staring at them regularly for three years, it was as if the pattern of faded greys and muddy whites was seared into his memory. These few slabs; the last place he'd seen him. He chewed his lip, the familiar ache in his chest almost humming as memories started to flood through the dam he had built against them, on the suggestion of his psychiatrist. People avoided walking over this particular patch of pavement now. They avoided the bench as well. Never once had anyone sat next to him, whilst he sat here, remembering.
He rubbed his hand over his face and shook his head almost imperceptibly, lifting his gaze to watch the cars, buses and bicycles rushing past him on the road ahead. He groaned and fixed his gaze on the paving slabs once more, leaning forward so that his elbows rested on his knees, his chin on his hands.
With a sigh, he let his eyes flutter closed, his mind roaming through the memories he so often supressed. He supposed he was allowed to remember, today, of all days. How could life just carry on around him? He cursed softly. How had everyone given him up for a fraud so easily?
Pushing the memories back down inside him, along with his feelings, John leant back in his seat, eyes still shut. All he had wanted was one more miracle. Sighing heavily again, and leaning forward to pick up his bag from the floor, John opened his eyes.
Someone was standing on the paving slab, their highly polished shoes taunting him. He looked up, a sharp reprimand on his lips, but his indignation faded away on his lips, turning to horror.
It was Mycroft.
"You." His voice cracked and broke, emotion coursing through him. It had been 2 years since he'd seen Mycroft and there was a reason for that. His arm twitched at his side and he shook his head.
"No, no." He stepped around Mycroft, whose cold face was set as he regarded John with somewhat sorrowful eyes. "No. I told you… Just get away from me. Don't come to see me."
Mycroft spun on the spot and caught his arm. "John. Don't"
But John has wrestled his arm from Mycroft's grip, his mouth set in a firm line. "How dare you come here?"
Mycroft shook his head, but as he went to speak John growled in frustration and anger and started to walk away, away, away, anywhere but here, anywhere away from Mycroft and the memories that pressed around him, heavy in the air and threatening to suffocate him.
"John. I come here too. To remember."
John shook his head, ignoring the curt clipping sound of Mycroft's steps as he followed John along the pavement.
"I lost him too, John." Mycroft's voice was plaintive and whiny, barely distinguishable above the noise of life going on around them, but John heard him. He hissed, pent up anger bubbling in his chest, as he whipped around and strode back towards Mycroft until they were so close he was sure Mycroft could feel John's angry, heavy breaths on his face.
"You sold him to the devil. You have no right, no right! No right to come here and even attempt to tell me you know how I feel." John gripped his face with his hand, turning and stepping a few steps away but changing his mind, turning again and pushing Mycroft's chest with an accusatory jolt of his finger. "As if you mourned for him at all. You never cared for him while he was alive. If you had even loved him a little, he would still be alive."
Mycroft was trying to say something, but his pathetic excuses were just whispers and John cast them aside with disdain, as he had everything Mycroft had said to him in the past three years.
"If it wasn't for you, he would still be here." John's voice was barely more than a hiss, his features twisted into anger like he hadn't felt in years, spitting the words out as if they were poisoning him, as if the hate and anger for Mycroft was burning his mouth and he had to push them out of him. "You took him away; you stopped his brilliance, you… You betrayed us." Tears were threatening to spill from his eyes. He turned curtly on his heel, military instinct helping to carry him away before that all-consuming paralysing pain returned to him. Why had Mycroft come to see him? Today. The anniversary. It was too much to bear.